Ivor, Keto, Cancer and Calories.

They were approaching the question from two very different viewpoints.
The professor has to look people in the eye and try to help them overcome their cancer. He advises patients based on on-going guidelines so until an alternative approach is proven (or not) he must defend his position. In fact he appeared to be getting quite angry.
Ivor Cummins focused on obesity / diabetes where there is doubtless evidence that reduced glucose helps.
I have sympathy with both but neither of them could adequately defend their corner in such a limited time.

Guzzler said:

A fifteen minute video featuring FatEmperor.

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Thanks for posting this. Very interesting to listen to. Shocked by the old guy's last words "it's the calories that count"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jo_the_boat said:

They were approaching the question from two very different viewpoints.
The professor has to look people in the eye and try to help them overcome their cancer. He advises patients based on on-going guidelines so until an alternative approach is proven (or not) he must defend his position. In fact he appeared to be getting quite angry.
Ivor Cummins focused on obesity / diabetes where there is doubtless evidence that reduced glucose helps.
I have sympathy with both but neither of them could adequately defend their corner in such a limited time.

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Totally agree. 2 different problems and 2 different ideas about nutrition. I agree with @Guzzler, theProf did appear angry and Ivor was interrupted. Shame.

Interesting - but same conclusion for me as usual - every one is different try things and do start works best for you

The story of the keto diet and cancer is interesting and I think Ivor was reasonable about the fact that there is nothing proven yet. Those advocting its use suggest it as an adjunct to chemotherapy in that it may help make chemo more effective and mitigate the toxic side effects.
I think there was an assumption by the prof who was put into the position of defending the status quo against quackery, that keto is just for weight loss and that therefore giving it to a cancer patient who in advanced stages suffers from wasting was dangerous. He then went on to say that all calories are equal so it doesn't matter if you eat fat caolories or carb calories.
Ivor Cummins, put into the position of defending a faddy diet, did well to remain calm and steer the topic back to keto as a cure for carbohydrate intolerance but there are scientists that believe that cancer is a metabolic disease rather than a genetic one and that the metabolic disturbance is why people get diabetic, get obese then get 'lifestyle' cancers. The trouble with the keto diet as medical therapy is that there is not enough research but if it were a drug I imagine more research would have been done because of its commercial potential. However, other than paying dieticians eating keto is largely free so I hope that some good news emerges from the research though it is unlikely to be a silver bullet; Silver bullets t seem very rare in cancer treatments in spite of the hugh investment in mapping the cancer genome.
For anyone who is interested Travis Cristofferson's book Tripping Over the Truth is a very good read on the topic.

Low Carb Down Under
Published on Jan 31, 2018

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Dr. Dawn Lemanne is a Stanford-trained, board-certified integrative and medical oncologist. Dr. Lemanne has published in peer-reviewed journals and has authored textbook chapters in integrative oncology. She holds degrees in biophysics, public health, medicine, and science writing from the University of California, Berkeley, the University of California, San Francisco, and Johns Hopkins University. In 2016, Dr. Lemanne co-authored the book “N of 1,” the story of a man’s Harvard-documented recovery from a form of leukemia using non-conventional methods. Dr. Lemanne is recognised as a leader in the Quantified Self movement. Specifically, she is a proponent of rigorously designed single-subject studies that investigate the effectiveness of lifestyle interventions in chronic disease. Dr. Lemanne is head of the Independent Metabolic Research Group, a collaboration of health professionals investigating the effects of diet, exercise, sleep, and supplements on biomarkers relevant to malignancy and other chronic diseases. She is the founder of Oregon Integrative Oncology in Ashland, Oregon, where she currently practices.
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This is a rather interesting presentation...and there's really quite a lot more ongoing research in the low carb community...

You guys should remember the media is not interested in what may help people, it is interested in polarization and creating a conflict situation.

The learned guy should know a calorie may be a calorie to a test tube and a Bunsen burner, but a 100 calories of sugar are certainly not the same as a 100 calories of protein to the human body!
D.

Ivor Cummings has given talks where he links advanced insulin intolerance to an increase in cancer rates (video starts at relevant moment):


Sugar and cancer do have a complicated relationship, as described by Cancer Research UK here:

http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2017/05/15/sugar-and-cancer-what-you-need-to-know/

-though it's far more complicated than "Sugar feeds cancer". But there's also the psychology element to take into consideration, too: a patient adopting a diet, cutting something out or making a significant change that they are able to maintain feels significantly more in control of their bodies and - potentially - their health, which leads to a more optimistic outlook. Even if cutting out sugar ultimately makes little to no difference physically, it still promotes a sense of control and empowerment which is essential to patients, whether terminal or otherwise.

I find the video to be profoundly annoying right from the introduction: "87% of us describe ourselves as healthy" - but she doesn't bother to point out how that statistic is contradicted by rising diabetes and cancer rates, eg.

Further when a programme says things like "diet advice based on insufficient evidence" and doesn't even pause to glance at the "Eats loads of carbs!" advice given to diabetics in the UK and Ireland and the Eatwell plate (you could argue time; I argue laziness and agenda) there's something sniffy going on.

The way the presenter is pushing on the basics of scientific process is also annoying. Maybe she's trying to get that clearly laid out for her non-science-fluent viewers, but it's wasting time and she only challenges Ivor in that way. She also constantly prevents Ivor from responding to the points raised by the other fellow by asking him another question, which then gets challenged by Other Doctor and then Ivor is again denied the chance to answer by being given another question.

I have sympathy for "Calories that count" coming from a doctor who primarily works with cancer patients; there comes a point when any nutrition entering the body - no matter what it is - becomes absolutely vital for life, every meal, every bite, every calorie. But it's not appropriate to base advice to the general population on that moment of extremity or to let that be the footnote of the over-all piece without challenge and explanation.

Current affairs doing pop-science for the mainstream. It was only ever going to be something of a train wreck, but it's reassuring to see Ivor continuing to accept these invitations and keep trying to get the message out there: carbs = trouble.

More Ivor and friends on carbs and cancer. The first one is slightly difficult and very slow, but worth hanging in for:


The second is a TEDx talk by Dominic D'Agostino (a professor from Florida who "develops and tests metabolic therapies") where he discusses starving cancer using a keto approach:


To be clear, I'm not advocating that people with cancer should drop their treatment regimes and go keto. I'm just offering information (from as close to the sources as I can find) relevant to the topic.

Guzzler said:

I think that the Prof was getting angry about the stupid and dangerous claims of cancer cures/alternative cures that the imbeciles post all over YouTube and was expecting Ivor to make the same kind of claims about Keto.

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I agree. There has been a problem with people that have been diagnosed with cancer refusing certain treatments such as chemo or radiotherapy because a "natural cure" has been found. They prefer to give it a go rather than suffer the side effects of treatment. Bad mistake. I can't blame the professor for being worried about this trend.

What is the survival and success rates for being cancer free for those who underwent chemotherapy that it should be the go to option...

kokhongw said:

What is the survival and success rates for being cancer free for those who underwent chemotherapy that it should be the go to option...

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It very much depends on where the cancer is, how aggressive, and how advanced it is. As far as breast cancer is concerned, there is a risk factor calculation (on-line) the oncologists use. It judges the 5 and 10 year survival rate with chemo and without chemo. The difference has to be big enough for chemo to be actively encouraged, but it may still be offered even if the difference is quite small. In my case the difference was significant because of the aggressive type of tumour I had, even though it was a smallish relatively new tumour. Personally I let them throw the lot at me, and so far so good 5 years later.

Bluetit1802 said:

I agree. There has been a problem with people that have been diagnosed with cancer refusing certain treatments such as chemo or radiotherapy because a "natural cure" has been found. They prefer to give it a go rather than suffer the side effects of treatment. Bad mistake. I can't blame the professor for being worried about this trend.

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Exactly, cancer is not one disease, the stage three bilateral tumours I had were hormonal in origin and males in my family had (died of) and have prostate cancer.
I had radiotherapy and three years hormone therapy and have been in remission over 14 years.
Don't mess around with unproven remedies when one has cancer. Seek out the best treatment.
I know someone who wouldn't have chemo because she didn't want to lose her hair. Sadly she lost her life, possibly through her stance.
D.

lindisfel said:

I know someone who wouldn't have chemo because she didn't want to lose her hair. Sadly she lost her life, possibly through her stance.

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I know someone else that did the same for the same reason, and she also lost her life. (Losing hair is fun - it grows back quickly and is different from it what it was. Mine was straight and dyed brown. It came back curly and grey! The curls have since gone, but the grey is still there, and it suits me better than the brown! The biggest benefit hair-wise is it never grew back under my arms and on my legs. Big plus!

lindisfel said:

You guys should remember the media is not interested in what may help people, it is interested in polarization and creating a conflict situation.

The learned guy should know a calorie may be a calorie to a test tube and a Bunsen burner, but a 100 calories of sugar are certainly not the same as a 100 calories of protein to the human body!
D.

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Just because he's a professor, it doesn't necessarily follow he's a learned fellow. Sometimes it's a title for time served, and tenure can mean an escape from 'publish or perish'. Profs have postgrads for that. And there can be caution needed with an Emeritus Professor, because that means they've retired in good standing.

That aside, I noticed two issues (other than Ivor probably being ambushed).

Prof Gibney seemed to disagree that gluconeogenisis can work on something other than proteins. Much of his early work seems to have focused on lipids. Ivor disagreed, and from my own research, I agree with him. But it's something I've seen a few times, ie the idea that it favors proteins over anything else. If the Prof is correct, a keto diet should provide enough proteins to avoid cannabalising our own. But everything I read about survival even prior to diagnosis showed humans will consume fat reserves in preference to muscle, even in (or especially in) starvation situations.

And the Prof went on about over 30yrs, diet advice has been unchanged. Yet in those 30yrs, diabetes, or metabolic syndrome and obesity have rocketed.