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Ketogenic Diet May Be Beneficial In Chemotherapy
A ketogenic diet very low in carbohydrates can counteract the reduced blood platelet counts that often result from chemotherapy, a study in mice and men suggests.
Ketogenic Diet May Be Beneficial In Chemotherapy
The findings, which appear in Science Translational Medicine, add to the potential therapeutic benefits of this diet, which is already being used for epilepsy and obesity.
Ketogenic Diet May Be Beneficial In Chemotherapy
The diet is additionally being explored for its impact on diabetes, polycystic ovary syndrome, innate immune responses, lymphodema, and for its antitumor effects in cancer.
Ketogenic Diet May Be Beneficial In Chemotherapy
Researchers in the current study admit that their clinical data are preliminary for examining the diet’s impact on low platelet counts, otherwise known as thrombocytopenia.
Ketogenic Diet May Be Beneficial In Chemotherapy
“However, these findings reconcile with findings from preclinical models and provide preliminary data that ketogenic diets have potential for treating CIT [chemotherapy-induced thrombocytopenia] in cancer,” they maintain.
Ketogenic Diet May Be Beneficial In Chemotherapy
Low platelet counts occur in one in 10 patients undergoing chemotherapy for cancer, placing them at increased risk of complications during surgery, with an increased chance of bleeding.
Ketogenic Diet May Be Beneficial In Chemotherapy
Noting that ketogenic diets boost the production of liver ketone bodies and have metabolic effects, Sisi Xie, from Fudan University in Shanghai, China, and colleagues examined whether this dietary regime could potentially prevent thrombocytopenia.
The team found that the ketone body β-hydroxybutyrate, which is boosted by the diet, activated platelet-forming genes by encouraging histone acetylation in bone marrow cells called megakaryocytes.
Mice with pancreatic or liver cancer fed ketogenic diets were also more resistant to thrombocytopenia induced by chemotherapy using gemcitabine than animals receiving control diets.
The team then tested the platelet effects of a ketogenic diet in humans using five healthy male volunteers.
Following a strict ketogenic diet for seven days modestly increased functional platelet count by approximate 1.1 fold compared with a regular diet, without affecting platelet distribution width, mean platelet volume, or either red or white blood cell counts.
Platelet counts increased in all…