The purpose of the study was to find out if fasting could protect the intestines from high-dose radiation, which could allow for higher doses of radiation treatment in killing pancreatic tumor cells. (When patients undergo abdominal radiation the intestines are, due to their rapid turnover of cells that make up the lining, very sensitive to the dose of radiation, and patients are often debilitated by colitis-like symptoms.) Not only did the investigators demonstrate that fasting improved survival and intestinal cell regeneration, they also found that fasting improved the survival of mice with pancreatic tumors also subjected to lethal doses of abdominal radiation. The investigators also noted that the protection conferred by fasting applied only to the normal tissues, whereas the pancreatic tumors were not radioprotected, and actually may have been more vulnerable as a result of the 24-hour fast.
Read more about it here: Fasting and Cancer.
Read the study here: Fasting Reduces Intestinal Radiotoxicity, Enabling Dose-Escalated Radiation Therapy for Pancreatic Cancer.
No comments:
Post a Comment