Cancer cells adapting to use ketone bodies for fuel?

A response to an interesting study:

The bad news is: 

Cancer is very good at adapting in order to proliferate in challenging environments so this study throws up interesting talking points. 

The good news is: 

1. It will always be effective for all types of epilepsy. - including brain tumour related epilepsy (and related symptoms)

2. There are many different approaches within metabolic therapy that are effective. Central Nervous System cancers are unique in many ways. 

3. We are not rodents and other animals with more spontaneous tumours are continuing to display very encouraging long term results. 

4. Human cancer cells injected into mice have had to adapt to foreign conditions anyway so I would presume this may also be a factor to consider. 

5. The quality and type of ketogenic diet is vitally important and continues to be ignored in rodent studies (and the few human clinical trials out there). Quality of fats used is generally poor in these studies. Some even use vegetable fats!!

The study is very interesting and needs to be researched further but we need to further expand our horizons to get truly relevant data. 

Researchers often have a very narrow focus, these rodents typically aren't even monitored for seizure activity which is a very important consideration. 

I have been asked? Would be interesting to seperate the unique ketosis benefits from the normoglycemia?

Certainly, but we must remember that they are interrelated they and that it remains a fact that if quality fats are included we see that in and around malignant brain tissue we continue to see very low amounts of DHA (which is also cytotoxic to brain cancer cells). Ensuring that quality fats, particularly DHA (which makes up at least 20% of healthy brain tissue, still appears to make perfect sense when we devise an appropriate ketogenic diet. 

Personally I get frustrated at times with these ketogenic diet studies using poor quality ingredients. Im my humble opinion it should be no dairy, less omega 6, more omega 3- especially DHA. This is perhaps even more important than the ketones. I know individuals who have utilised a metabolic approach that is not strict keto and have achieved remission simply following these 'rules' so in a way I agree with the study that it isn't all about ketones. 

If the ketones are powerful metabolic tools long term, which I still believe they can be, we must consider this fact...

All ketones are not created equal. Lifestyle factors are also important and this plays a bigger role in humans, especially vitamin D status.

I've written this in about 2 minutes but when I have time after Christmas I will add all my research to back up the individual points made. It's a great study for discussion and I'm glad it's been brought to my attention. I like to question everything and I am continually adapting my methods to suit new research. 

I'm also really looking forward to Christmas Day so...

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!