Fasting diet could boost breast cancer therapy

A USC-led team of international scientists found that a one-two punch of a fasting diet with hormone therapy may enhance the effects of breast cancer treatment in small clinical trials and mouse studies.

A USC-led team of scientists has found that a fasting-mimicking diet combined with hormone therapy has the potential to help treat breast cancer, according to newly published animal studies and small clinical trials in humans.

In studies on mice and in two small breast cancer clinical trials, researchers at USC and the IFOM Cancer Institute in Milan — in collaboration with the University of Genova — found that the fasting-mimicking diet reduces blood insulin, insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) and leptin. In mice, these effects appear to increase the power of the cancer hormone drugs tamoxifen and fulvestrant and delay any resistance to them. The results from 36 women treated with the hormone therapy and fasting-mimicking diet are promising, but researchers say it is still too early to determine whether the effects will be confirmed in large-scale clinical trials.

The research was published in the journal Nature.

Release date: 21 July 2020