Ketogenic diets are often suggested for people who want to lose weight, but new research suggests they can also reduce your chances of getting pancreatic cancer. The study found that when combined with triple drug therapy, keto dieting may have benefits in fighting this deadly disease.

While there have been improvements in chemotherapy in recent years, the impact of diet on improving chemotherapy outcomes has not been extensively studied. In a recent study, researchers tested the effects of keto dieting in conjunction with chemotherapy on mouse models for pancreatic cancer. The diets decreased glucose levels and starved out energy sources from cancerous cells while also increasing levels offering alternative fuel known as “ketone bodies” which further destabilised them because they couldn’t grow or reproduce like normal tissue do when provided with enough sugars along side healthy protein foods.

The environment created by the keto diet, they say, enabled a triple-drug therapy composed of chemotherapy drugs: gemcitabine, nab-paclitaxel, and cisplatin, to then more effectively destroy cancer cells. They also found that the keto diet induced pro-inflammatory tumor gene expression, which further weakened the cancer. 

Five clinical trials have been launched to test the findings. Each trial will include up to 40 patients receiving triple-drug chemotherapy, half of which will also follow a ketogenic diet. The results of these ongoing trials will help the researchers evaluate how the combination of a keto diet and chemotherapy interacts with human cancer cells.

Sources: ScienceDaily, Med