Low-carb diets prevent colon cancer: Study supports ketogenic diet claims.

The report below is why I love blogging. We can share news, views, information. This is great information, so many thanks to our good friends Jasmine and Tess for providing this link.

How many times have we heard from medical professionals and dieticians that a low carb diet can lead to chronic constipation and bowel problems? Quite a few I think, but could they have this wrong?  I am not a medical person, but I have lived the low carb high fat lifestyle for more than six years and I have not experienced or suffered any stomach or bowel problems. 

All the best Jan   

Here is part of the report click on the link below for more information.

Scientists at the University of Toronto say a low-carb diet can dramatically reduce the risk of colon cancer. In a press releaseFriday, UT researchers said their studies indicate a low-carb diet can stem cancer growth by up to 75 percent.

“Our results suggest that a diet low in carbohydrates could benefit those with a genetic predisposition to colon cancer,” said Alberto Martin, a professor in the department of immunology.

“About 20 percent of colon cancers thrive on mutations in genes involved in DNA mismatch repair. For this type of cancer, our study offers an explanation for the interplay among genetics, diet and intestinal microbiota.”

The latest study from UT confirms other findings by renowned cancer scientist Dr. Thomas Seyfried of Boston College. Seyfried's decades of research indicates cancer is a metabolic disease that can best be treated with the low-carb, high-fat ketogenic diet, he revealed in an exclusive interview.

Dr. Seyfried, widely considered the godfather of the nutritional treatment of cancer, joins a growing number of researchers who say the ketogenic diet can treat most forms of cancer. Seyfried's study was recently published in the medical journal Carcinogenesis.

This is because nearly all the healthy cells in our body have the metabolic flexibility to use fat, glucose and ketones to survive, but cancer cells lack this metabolic flexibility and require large amounts of glucose and cannot survive on ketones. So by limiting carbohydrates (as the keto diet does) we can reduce glucose and insulin, and thus restrict the primary fuel for cancer cell growth.

While this idea may sound new to us lay people, scientists have been aware of this for the past 80 years. This phenomenon was first observed in the 1920s by German physiologist Otto Warburg, who won a Nobel Prize in 1931 for discovering that cancer cells have defective mitochondria and thrive on sugar.

Full article can be read here.