How change in diet helps battle cancer

Starving tumours slows disease, Scots study finds

SCOTTISH scientists have found a way to slow the growth of cancer by making changes to patients’ diet.

Research has shown that starving the disease of certain amino acids – the building blocks of protein – can hinder tumour growth.

Scientists involved in the project believe that cancer cells need proteins from the diet in order to grow.

They hope that putting patients on a specially formulated food plan could make chemotherapy more effective.

Studies were carried out on mice by Glasgow’s Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute and Glasgow University.

It was found that removing two non-essential amino acids – serine and glycine – from the animals’ diet slowed the development of lymphoma and intestinal cancer.

Their work, which is published in the journal Nature, also found that the special diet could make cancer cells more susceptible to treatments.

The next stage would be to set up clinical trials with cancer patients.

Professor Karen Vousden, Cancer Research UK’s chief scientist and study co-author, said: ‘We were looking to see if we could limit the development of tumours by limiting the amino acids in the diet and we found the cancers were susceptible to being starved of them.’

A typical diet that a patient might be put on in a future trial would be low in protein – such as meat, cheese, dairy and eggs.

But the individual would then need to take a specially formulated dietary supplement to ensure there was not a deficiency in other amino acids that are essential for health.

Professor Vousden added: ‘This kind of restricted diet would be a short-term measure and must be carefully controlled and monitored by doctors for safety.

‘Our diet is complex and protein – the main source of all amino acids – is vital for our health and wellbeing. This means that patients cannot safely cut out these specific amino acids simply by following some form of home-made diet.’

While healthy cells are able to make sufficient serine and glycine, cancer cells are much more dependent on getting these vital amino acids from the diet.

The study showed that while a change in diet was effective against some tumours, such as lymphoma and intestinal cancer, it was less effective against others, such as pancreatic cancer, because of the way the cancer cells behave.

Dr Emma Smith, science communication manager at Cancer Research UK, said: ‘This is a really interesting look at how cutting off the supply of nutrients essential to cancer cell growth and division could help restrain tumours.

‘The next steps are clinical trials in people to see if giving a specialised diet that lacks these amino acids is safe and helps slow tumour growth as seen in mice. We’d also need to work out which patients are most likely to benefit.’

‘Cutting off supply of nutrients’