Ray, as an individual, you are welcome to your opinion, and to state it.
However, also as an individual, and a medically-trained one at that, I cannot stand by and allow falsehoods and mistruths to be promulgated.
Tony Jay
Fair enough Tony. Since I do my best to take responsibility for my own health, which at my current age of almost 74 is currently fine with no problems that I'm aware of and always has been fine apart from the occasional incidence of flu and the like, and the occasional minor accident, I am also very concerned about any falsehoods relating to health matters because I wish my good health to continue.
I take my health seriously, so naturally I would be very grateful if you were able to
prove that fasting
cannot cure cancer, and that the suggestion that it can is a load of rubbish.
I hear reports all the time of people who have been diagnosed with cancer but who fail to be cured by conventional medical treatments which often seem to do no more than prolong their life for a few months or a few years. But of course, some people do experience long-lasting cures of their cancer.
Now I'm not suggesting that such cancers which are too advanced to be cured by conventional treatments could be cured by fasting alone, but the impression I get is that a combination of fasting and chemotherapy might make these conventional treatments more effective.
The research also implies there are a number of other benefits that result from regular or intermittent fasting, including increased longevity and a more effective immune system, which is the reason that I occasionally fast. The longest period I've fasted so far, drinking only water, is 4 days. 2 or 3 days is easy. Perhaps next time I might achieve 5 full days of fasting.
Since I have the ability to fast without any excessive discomfort, I'm naturally interested in the possible benefits.
The source that you cite (at least the ones that I looked at) are not scientific at all. The fact that they cite various studies as "proof" of their claims does not in fact stand scrutiny as I said. Who, exactly, is the author of that article in CancerActive? No oncologist would have written that - an article like that would destroy his or her reputation irreparably. No, it seems that Mr A Nonymous wrote this article along with everything else on that website. So, whoever wrote this stuff has no idea how to evaluate scientific/medical research data and is actually writing to an agenda instead.
Tony, I quoted that link, CancerActive because it provides a general view that can be understood by the layperson. The organisation appears to be a Cancer Charity. This is how they describe their mission below.
"Our mission is to EMPOWER people to increase their personal odds of beating cancer; to be able to take more control over their own lives and their own treatment and to make more informed, personal choices about their cancer treatment options. We do this by providing ALL the information, not just on orthodox cancer treatments, but on complementary and integrative cancer therapies too. We aim to do this in an objective, balanced way and we take absolutely no money from any provider of any treatment."Nowhere do I see them using the word 'proof'.
There are more scientifically oriented links amongst those below, for those who are interested.
Please feel free to tear them to shreds if you think they are all rubbish.
Here's an extract that seems rather positive to me, but no actual 'proof' of course.
FASTING AND CANCER"Fasting has the potential for applications in both cancer prevention and treatment. Although no human data are available on the effect of IF or PF in cancer prevention, their effect on reducing IGF-1, insulin and glucose levels, and increasing IGFBP1 and ketone body levels could generate a protective environment that reduces DNA damage and carcinogenesis, while at the same time creating hostile conditions for tumor and pre-cancerous cells (Figure 5). In fact, elevated circulating IGF-1 is associated with increased risk of developing certain cancers (Chan et al., 2000; Giovannucci et al., 2000) and individuals with severe IGF-1deficiency caused by growth hormone receptor deficiency, rarely develop cancer (Guevara-Aguirre et al., 2011; Shevah and Laron, 2007; Steuerman et al., 2011). Furthermore, the serum from these IGF-1deficient subjects protected human epithelial cells from oxidative stress-induced DNA damage. Furthermore, once their DNA became damaged, cells were more likely to undergo programmed cell death (Guevara-Aguirre et al., 2011). Thus, fasting may protect from cancer by reducing cellular and DNA damage but also by enhancing the death of pre-cancerous cells.
In a preliminary study of 10 subjects with a variety of malignancies, the combination of chemotherapy with fasting resulted in a decrease in a range of self-reported common side effects caused by chemotherapy compared to the same subjects receiving chemotherapy while on a standard diet (Safdie et al., 2009). The effect of fasting on chemotherapy toxicity and cancer progression is now being tested in clinical trials in both Europe and the US (0S-08-9, 0S-10-3)."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3946160/http://www.nature.com/onc/journal/v30/n30/abs/onc201191a.htmlhttp://blogs.uoregon.edu/bi410/files/2014/04/mice-cr-1a727ci.pdf