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Pancreatic cancer cells could “starve” thanks to a combination of a new type of cancer drug and a keto diet, an early study suggests.
Researchers said their new study points to a “vulnerability” which could potentially lead to a new treatment for pancreatic cancer, which has notoriously poor outcomes.
In most patients, symptoms do not appear until later stages of the disease, often making it too late to treat or control.
Only around 5 per cent of people with the disease survive for a decade after diagnosis.

Pancreatic Cancer UK urged patients not to make any radical changes to their diets, however, as the study was still in the early stages and the drug has not yet been tested in humans with pancreatic cancer.
Researchers set out to examine how the body manages to support itself on fat while fasting.
They found that a protein known as eukaryotic translation initiation factor (eIF4E) changes the body’s metabolism to switch to “fat consumption” during fasting.
The same switch also occurs when an animal is on a ketogenic diet – based on high fat and low carbohydrates.
The team, from the University of California, San Francisco in the US, discovered that a new cancer drug called eFT508, which is currently in clinical trials, blocked this protein, preventing the body from metabolising fat.
We now have firm evidence of one way in which diet might be used alongside pre-existing cancer therapies to precisely eliminate a cancer
Professor Davide Ruggero, University of California, San Francisco
In mouse studies, researchers found that when cancer therapy blocks fat metabolism, which is the tumour’s only source of fuel for as long as the mice remain on the ketogenic diet, the cancer appeared to stop growing.
“Certain cancers can use ketone bodies as an alternative energy source to sustain cancer fitness, such as pancreatic tumours,” researchers wrote in the journal Nature.
Professor Davide Ruggero, senior author of the paper, said: “Our findings led us straight to the biology of one of the deadliest cancers, pancreatic cancer.”
Knowing that pancreatic cancer can thrive on fat, and that the eIF4E protein is more active during fat burning, the scientists first placed the animals on a ketogenic diet, forcing the tumours to consume fats alone, and then put them on the cancer drug.
Researchers said this meant that the drug cut off the cancer cells’ only sustenance – and the cancer appeared to shrink.

Ruggero said: “Our findings open a point of vulnerability that we can treat with a clinical inhibitor that we already know is safe in humans.
“We now have firm evidence of one way in which diet might be used alongside pre-existing cancer therapies to precisely eliminate a cancer.”
He said they expect most cancers to have other vulnerabilities, and that this is the foundation for a new way to treat cancer with diet and personalised therapies.
Dr Chris Macdonald, head of research at Pancreatic Cancer UK, said: “Pancreatic cancer is the deadliest common cancer.
“Over half of people diagnosed die within three months … To improve survival rates, we desperately need new ways to diagnose and treat this devastating disease.
Based on the current evidence, we would strongly advise that people with pancreatic cancer do not make any radical changes to their diet unless advised by a medical professional
Dr Chris Macdonald, head of research at Pancreatic Cancer UK
“Understanding how cancer cells are able to grow and spread so rapidly, and the ways in which this is fuelled, is a key area of research that could lead to new and more effective treatments.”
Macdonald stressed that this new study is early-stage research of a drug that has not yet been used in the context of pancreatic cancer in humans – it was carried out in mice – “so we must treat these results with caution”.
“People with pancreatic cancer suffer considerably from malnutrition and inability to digest food as a result of their cancer,” he says.
“Based on the current evidence, we would strongly advise that people with pancreatic cancer do not make any radical changes to their diet unless advised by a medical professional.”
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Pancreatic cancer ‘starves’ on keto diet and new drug, tests on mice show

A new cancer drug combined with a keto diet could “starve” pancreatic cancer and open new lines of treatment against it and other fast-growing tumours, after testing on mice stopped tumour growth. Photo: Shutterstock

A new study shows how a keto diet might be used alongside a cancer therapy to eliminate pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest common cancers and one of the hardest to detect. Photo: Shutterstock

Professor Davide Ruggero is a cancer researcher at University of California San Francisco. Photo: USCF 

Pancreatic cancer, which killed Steve Jobs, is hard to spot. Biomarkers may change that

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Dr Yan Bi, a gastroenterologist at Mayo Clinic in Florida, says detecting pancreatic cancer earlier is the best way to improve survival. Photo: Mayo Clinic

Researchers looked at the results of abdominal CAT scans and blood tests from pancreatic cancer patients in the three years before they were diagnosed. Photo: Shutterstock 

Pancreatic cancer has always been difficult to detect in its early stages, but new research could change that. Photo: Shutterstock

Bi has been working on a project that uses AI and wearables to track changes in body composition combined with other data to calculate the risk of developing pancreatic cancer. Photo: Shutterstock

Chinese scientists’ discovery could improve pancreatic cancer patients’ survival rate

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Stomach cancer usually refers to cancerous changes of the stomach mucosa, the inner lining. Photo: Shutterstock

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Lifestyle

Health & Wellness

Health

Findings called promising, but pancreatic cancer patients are warned not to change their diet yet – research has been done only on mice


A keto diet combined with a new cancer drug ‘starves’ pancreatic cancer and halts tumour growth in mice, opening the possibility for new lines of treatment to eliminate it and other fast-growing cancers.


Cancer

Disease

Medicine

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