“Starvation and Nutrient Signaling Genes in Cancer Treatment: From Yeast to Humans”
A light lunch will be served in the foyer at 11.40am
Abstract: The dietary recommendation for cancer patients receiving chemotherapy, as described by the American Cancer Society, is to increase calorie and protein intake. Yet, in simple organisms, mice and humans, fasting induces a wide range of changes that promote cellular protection, which would be difficult to achieve even with pharmacological interventions. In mammals, the protective effect of fasting is mediated, in part, by an over 50% reduction in glucose and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-I) levels. Because proto-oncogenes function as key negative regulators of the protective changes induced by fasting, cells expressing oncogenes, and therefore the great majority of cancer cells, are predicted to not respond to the protective signals generated by fasting, promoting the differential protection (Differential Stress Resistance) of normal and cancer cells from a variety of chemotherapy drugs. Preliminary reports indicate that fasting for up to 5 days followed by a normal diet, can also protect patients against chemotherapy without causing chronic weight loss or other detrimental side effects. By contrast, the long-term 20 to 40% restriction in calorie intake (dietary restriction, DR), whose effects on cancer progression have been studied extensively for many decades, requires weeks–months to be effective, causes much more modest changes in glucose and/or IGF-I levels, and promotes chronic weight loss in both rodents and humans, which prevent its clinical applications. I will discuss our basic as well as clinical studies on fasting, cellular protection and chemotherapy. Although additional pre-clinical and clinical studies are necessary, fasting has the potential to be translated into effective clinical interventions for the protection of patients and the improvement of therapeutic index.
Keck Research Advancement
(323) 442-7732
