Kim and Kourtney Kardashian's Diet Plan 'Helps Fight Killer Cancers by Starving Tumors'
Kim and Kourtney Kardashian's preferred diet calls for avoiding items like bread and pasta and substituting them with a lot of meat and dairy. According to US researchers, this may help stop tumors from obtaining the sugar they require to grow.
As per the researchers, the ketogenic diet helped mice with pancreatic and colorectal cancer fight the disease and live longer when used with standard medications called corticosteroids. According to Dr. Miriam Ferrer of Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory in New York, cancer affects the entire body. It alters typical biological functions to aid in its growth, adding, "Because of this reprogramming, mice can't use the nutrients from a keto diet, and waste away. But with the steroid, they did much better. They lived longer than with any other treatment we tried."
According to The U.S. Sun, after giving birth to her son Saint, reality star Kim Kardashian is said to have shed 60 pounds using the keto diet. Earlier, her sister Kourtney also said that her doctor had put her on the diet to help her detox, revealing, "My body never looked better than when I did the keto diet."
However, although possibly aiding in the fight against cancer, researchers caution that the diet may also have unforeseen repercussions for patients. In persons with cachexia, a condition characterized by fast weight loss, keto can accelerate the disease. "Cachexia is very common in patients with progressive cancer," according to lead author Dr. Tobias Janowitz. "They become so weak they can no longer handle anti-cancer treatment. Everyday tasks become Herculean labors."
The research, which was published in Cell Metabolism, examined how doctors could utilize the cancer-fighting properties of the diet without inducing cachexia. The mice with cancer that were administered dexamethasone, a corticosteroid, no longer had cachexia when adhering to the diet.
Cancer patients typically do not produce enough corticosterone, a hormone necessary for keto-adaptation, which causes them to continue losing weight and develop cachexia. Dexamethasone, however, takes the place of the hormone, lowering this danger. Tumors in the mice decreased, and they lived longer.
Dr. Janowitz stated, "We want to push back against cancer even harder, so it grows slower still. If we can broaden this effect, make the treatment more efficient, we can ultimately benefit patients and improve cancer therapeutics."
The Sun recently reported the negative impacts diets can have on an individual's health. Researchers from the University of British Columbia have cautioned those who follow the stringent diet that they are now twice as likely to experience heart attacks, strokes and blocked arteries as those who don't.
To learn more about persons who follow the ketogenic diet and the connection to poor heart health, the researchers examined data from the UK Biobank. They proposed that the high levels of bad cholesterol, or low-density lipoprotein (LDL) in the diet, might be to blame.
