Short-Term Fasting During Chemotherapy May Improve Ovarian Cancer Outcomes: Study

A new study presented in the journal of Association for Clinical Oncology revealed that women with high-grade serous ovarian cancer who practiced short-term fasting (STF) before and after chemotherapy had lower insulin levels, higher rates of pathologic response, and longer progression-free survival compared with those without dietary restrictions. They also observed early signs of enhanced immune response, which suggests that fasting may improve chemotherapy effectiveness.

This research investigated whether fasting could reduce insulin levels that may help tumors resist chemotherapy. Women receiving carboplatin and paclitaxel-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy were randomly assigned either to a short-term fasting regimen or to continue a regular unrestricted diet.

The fasting protocol required patients to abstain from food for 36 hours before chemotherapy and 24 hours afterward. A total of 36 women completed the first 3 treatment cycles, with 18 participants in each group.

Following three chemotherapy cycles, insulin levels rose significantly in patients following a free diet but declined in those practicing short-term fasting. An average insulin increase of nearly 10 µIU/mL in the free-diet group was observed, compared to a mild decrease in the fasting group.

At interval cytoreductive surgery, nearly 59% of fasting patients achieved the highest chemotherapy response score, when compared to just 18% of patients who maintained a regular diet. This score is considered an important indicator of how effectively chemotherapy has destroyed tumor cells before surgery.

Patients in the fasting group experienced substantially longer progression-free survival (PFS). After a median follow-up of 18 months, the fasting group achieved a median PFS of 38 months, when compared to 24 months in the control group.

Fasting may influence the immune system in ways that support treatment success, which was solidified through the translational analyses, which showed that STF reduced several immunosuppressive cell populations. These findings suggest that fasting may enhance anti-tumor immunity while simultaneously improving metabolic conditions that make cancer cells more vulnerable to treatment.

The patients who did not proceed to interval surgery after three chemotherapy cycles experienced greater increases in insulin levels, which further reinforced the possible link between metabolic health and treatment response.

Overall, the results of this pilot study provide a carefully supervised fasting regimen may improve both biological and clinical outcomes in ovarian cancer treatment. Larger studies on this subject could validate short-term fasting as a low-cost, non-pharmacological approach to enhance chemotherapy effectiveness in ovarian cancer patients.

Source:

Effects of short-term fasting compared to free diet in ovarian cancer patients: Results from a two-arm pilot randomized trial. - ASCO. (n.d.). Asco.org. https://www.asco.org/abstracts-presentations/258047