Personalized Nutrition in Disrupting Cancer — Proceedings From the 2017 American College of Nutrition Annual Meeting

Abstract

Cancer is a major public health problem and is the second leading cause of death in the United States and worldwide; nearly one in six deaths are attributable to cancer. Approximately 20% of all cancers diagnosed in the United States are attributable to unhealthy diet, excessive alcohol consumption, physical inactivity, and body fatness. Individual cancers are distinct disease states that are multifactorial in their causation, making them exceedingly cumbersome to study from a nutrition standpoint. Genetic influences are a major piece of the puzzle and personalized nutrition is likely to be most effective in disrupting cancer during all stages. Increasing evidence shows that after a cancer diagnosis, continuing standard dietary recommendations may not be appropriate. This is because powerful dietary interventions such as short-term fasting and carbohydrate restriction can disrupt tumor metabolism, synergizing with standard therapies such as radiation and drug therapy to improve efficacy and ultimately, cancer survival. The importance of identifying dietary interventions cannot be overstated, and the American College of Nutrition's commitment to advancing knowledge and research is evidenced by dedication of the 2017 ACN Annual Meeting to "Disrupting Cancer: The Role of Personalized Nutrition" and this resulting proceedings manuscript, which summarizes the meeting's findings.

Personalized Genome-Scale Metabolic Models Identify Targets of Redox Metabolism in Radiation-Resistant Tumors

“…For example, heterogeneity in glycolytic metabolism is being used to identify diagnostic biomarkers and treatment strategies for both pancreatic cancer and acute myeloid leukemia patients (Follia et al, 2019;Stuani et al, 2019). Personalized nutrition may also be a viable strategy for manipulating tumor redox metabolism in individual patients; most NADPH-generation pathways are supplied by glucose and glutamine intake, and folic acid levels may impact folate-dependent reactions (Choi and Park, 2018;Wallace et al, 2019).…”

Nutritional Interventions to Improve Clinical Outcomes in Ovarian Cancer: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials

“…The scientific rationale of this study relies on the results of in vitro and animal studies showing cancer cells sensitization to chemotherapy after fasting for 48 h [37,38]. There is a growing interest on the effect of STF or fast-mimicking diets (FMDs) during chemotherapy [39,40] and many clinical trials on this topic are ongoing [41,42,43,44,45,46,47]. However, these results should be taken with extreme caution [48].…”

Consideration of Ketogenic Metabolic Therapy as a Complementary or Alternative Approach for Managing Breast Cancer

“…Under KMT, this pro-tumorigenic microenvironment becomes less inflamed (84,182,183). Restricted KDs and calorie restriction are antiinvasive, antiangiogenic, anti-inflammatory, and capable of killing tumor cells through a pro-apoptotic mechanism (181)(182)(183)(184)(185)(186)(187)(188). Metabolism of the major circulating ketone body, D-betahydroxybutyrate, reduces reactive oxygen species production through the mitochondrial Co-enzyme Q couple in normal cells, while simultaneously elevating oxidative stress in tumor cells (34, [189][190][191].…”