Ketogenic Diet Aids Weight loss, Diabetes, Epilepsy and Multiple Sclerosis: Keto Starves Cancer

Research suggests the low-carb, high-fat ketogenic diet accelerates weight loss, reverses type 2 diabetes, manages multiple sclerosis and starves cancer. (Creative Commons)

The low carb, high-fat ketogenic diet has been shown to accelerate weight loss, reverse type 2 diabetes, and manage epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and cancer.

The ketogenic diet has a variety of health benefits that extend far beyond its application as a weight loss tool, cancer scientist Dr. Dominic D’Agostino said on a podcast with bestselling author Tim Ferriss.

D’Agostino’s lab has researched the use of the ketogenic diet to prevent epileptic seizures and “starve” cancer. He found the low carb, high-fat diet can protect brain health for epilepsy patients and for people who experience traumatic brain injury, such as football players who suffer concussions.

“The ketogenic diet seems to work for a variety of different seizure types, so I like to say it’s neuroprotective,” said D’Agostino, an assistant professor at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine in the department of molecular pharmacology and physiology.

He added: “Its neuroprotective properties are linked to its ability to supply ketones as a form of energy to the brain.”

Dominic D’Agostino and Angela Poff were able to double the survival time of mice with metastatic cancer using a combination of the ketogenic diet, ketone supplementation and hyperbaric oxygen therapy. (U. of S. Fla.)

Since 2007, D’Agostino has worked with the Office of Naval Research to assist the Navy SEALs by developing ketogenic diet strategies to protect them from the undersea environment. He said the keto diet prevented Navy SEALs from getting seizures during rigorous underwater training exercises.

The ketogenic diet has also been shown to prevent and even reverse multiple sclerosis.

Dr. Terry Wahls, a professor at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, reversed her multiple sclerosis by following a ketogenic-style Paleo diet.

Wahls, a physician who was diagnosed with MS in 2000, has managed her multiple sclerosis since 2008 with her own personalized keto Paleo diet, which she detailed in her bestseller, The Wahls Protocol.

Physician Terry Wahls reversed her multiple sclerosis after adopting a low-carb, high-fat ketogenic Paleo diet. (Photos: Dr. Terry Wahls)

Dr. Wahls said her MS improved dramatically — without drugs — after she switched to a keto Paleo diet, as Celebrity Health Fitness has reported:

“The results stunned my physician, my family and me. Within a year, I was able to walk through the hospital without a cane and even complete an 18-mile bicycle tour.”

Terry Wahls’ dramatic story inspired singer Chad Vaccarino of the duo A Great Big World to treat his multiple sclerosis using Dr. Wahls’ keto Paleo diet.

These results aren’t surprising to Dr. Eric Westman, co-author of Keto Clarity, who said ketosis has proven health benefits.

“When we restrict carbs in our diet, we can prevent pro-inflammatory spikes in blood glucose and blood insulin,” said D’Agostino. “Suppression of blood glucose and insulin spikes can be very helpful when managing many chronic diseases.”

Elaine Cantin detailed how she used the ketogenic diet to manage her son’s type I diabetes and her own aggressive breast cancer in The Cantin Ketogenic Diet For Cancer, Type 1 & 2 Diabetes, Epilepsy & Other Ailments.

According to Dr. D’Agostino, we are only as healthy as our mitochondria, which are the power sources of all our cells, so if we keep our mitochondria healthy, we can stall the onset of cancer and other age-related chronic diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and heart disease.

An effective way to inhibit the growth of cancer cells is to follow a ketogenic diet, he said.

“Most cancer scientists have historically thought cancer was a genetic disease, but only five to 10 percent of cancer is hereditary,” said D’Agostino, who has a Ph.D. in physiology and neuroscience.

D’Agostino’s research showed ketogenic diet therapy was able to double the survival time of mice with aggressive metastatic cancer, asCelebrity Health Fitness has reported. These same anti-cancer properties have also been observed in human cancer patients and reported in published studies.

Dominic D’Agostino was able increase the survival of mice with metastatic cancer by 103% using a combination of the ketogenic diet (KD), ketone supplements (KE), and hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT).

D’Agostino’s colleague, Dr. Thomas Seyfried of Boston College, told me the ketogenic diet can replace chemotherapy and radiation for many cancers.

Seyfried’s decades of research indicate that cancer is a metabolic — not a genetic — disease. And the best way to treat a metabolic disorder is through diet, not by pumping a patient full of toxic radiation, he said.

The problem with the traditional treatment of cancer, said Seyfried, is that the cancer community has approached it as a genetic disease, so much of the research efforts have gone into gene-focused studies, which he says does not address the root of the problem.

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 many forms of cancer.

Professor Thomas Seyfried of Boston College was among the first to advance the theory that cancer is not a genetic disease.

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 we can reduce glucose and insulin, and thus restrict the primary fuel for cancer cell growth.

While this idea may sound new, 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.

The “Warburg effect” can be exploited by the ketogenic diet, but so far this approach has not been used to fight cancer. However, the tide may soon be turning. Today, there are about a dozen studies that are investigating the use of the ketogenic diet to manage all kinds of cancer.

“The cancer research community needs to change its view of cancer as a metabolic — not a genetic — disease in order to make meaningful progress,” said Travis Christofferson, author of Tripping Over the Truth: The Metabolic Theory of Cancer.

Thomas Seyfried says the time has come for the medical community to publicly acknowledge the viability of the ketogenic diet as an inexpensive, non-toxic way to treat cancer.

“The standard of care has been an abysmal failure for cancer,” said Dr. Seyfried, author of Cancer as a Metabolic Disease. “The ketogenic diet may one day replace the standard of care for most cancers. To those who doubt me, I say: ‘Prove me wrong.’”

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