Intermittent Fasting – Protection From Cancer

Intermittent Fasting works for fat loss.  We have already covered that.

Intermittent Fasting may also your reduce risk for many forms of cancer.  It reduces your insulin levels and helps your body access stored fat for fuel.  Since body fat produces its own estrogen and many forms of cancer are correlated with excess estrogens, reducing body fat will lower estrogen levels and may reduce the risk of some cancers.

In the book Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes, the link between estrogen, weight gain and cancer is discussed.  Gain weight and estrogen production increases and those organs that are regulated by hormones, increase their risk of cancer.  For a detailed understanding of the relationship between insulin and cancer, read page 209-212 of GCBC.

This all ties into the autophagy benefit of Intermittent Fasting.  For a detailed overview of that topic read Going “Green” with Autophagy as Your Evolutionary Health Care Plan. It is a long article, but the take away lesson is that when the flood of nutrients into a cell is interrupted, a nutrient recycling takes place.  Damaged material is used for fuel.  In modern society, where we never miss a meal, that flood of nutrients is constant.  Constant growth to cells with damaged proteins may lead to or fuel cancer.

There was a study in 2008 that showed cancer patients that did fasting were better off, because the healthy cells were protected.   From the WebMD post Fasting may Improve Cancer Chemotherapy:

A new study suggests starvation induces a protective shield around healthy cells, allowing them to tolerate a much higher dose of chemotherapy.

And:

Researchers say genetic cues prompt starved healthy cells to go into a hibernation-like mode that produces extreme resistance to stress. But cancerous cells don’t obey those cues and remain stuck in growth mode.

If the healthy cells can tolerate periods of under nutrition, but cancer cells are stuck in growth mode, doing periods of fasting seems like a healthy strategy to reduce cancer risk.  It also falls more in line with our evolutionary past, where food was not always available.  We are here today, because our genes adapted to a world where food sources were not constant.  Many forms of cancer are thriving today in the modern environment of over nutrition.

Give Intermittent Fasting a try.