Fasting and Cancer

Since I am on a bit of an enforced juice fast, I thought I'd see if it might have some beneficial effect. Part of me thinks that perhaps starving the body could starve the cancer, and I've long had an intuition that it might help. It seems logical but not everything about cancer follows logic, as you know. The results are mixed on whether fasting (water or juice) helps or hurts. The official word from the American Cancer Society is that fasting could be dangerous to your health, and can actually promote the growth of some tumors. This is based on available medical evidence, which I don't think is extensive.

Now that the official word is out of the way, there are some interesting research studies and anecdotal evidence. First, a fascinating study reported in WebMD found that fasting for a few days before chemotherapy may improve its effect while shielding healthy cells. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the research speculated that "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." This protects healthy cells and might allow for higher doses of chemo against the cancerous cells. These results are still preliminary but quite interesting because the starvation appears to target healthy and cancerous cells in different ways.

Moving further afield, there are some anecdotal reports of success with fasting, including a story by Sammy Hoffard who claims to have been cured of stage 4 ovarian cancer as a result of a 10-day juice fast, as well as prayer. Three of four tumors disappeared and the fourth was then surgically removed, and Sammy remained cancer free, although it is uncertain how long. This information is on a site by Ron Laquerquist who has a book Fasting to Freedom on the beneficial effects of fasting, and claims that "fasting will break down tumors." This statement is completely unverified, as far as I know, but I have not read the book. Laquerquist recommends a specific approach to fasting combining water and juice fasting for up to 40 days, something many medical experts would consider dangerous. But certainly Gandhi went for as long as three weeks, and others have done long fasts for spiritual reasons, and survived. Chemotherapy, surgery and radiation are not particularly good for your health. Among the other claims about fasting are that it alkalizes the body. More to come as I find it, or feel free to comment if you know anything about this.

In the meantime, I am going to assume that my body in its infinite wisdom does not want me to eat now for some reason, perhaps physical and perhaps only to purify my soul in the time-honored tradition of fasting. And, of course, now I am an experiment of one so I'll keep track of how my "fast" progresses.