Abstract
Although cancer is still one of the most significant global challenges facing public health, the world still lacks complementary approaches that would significantly enhance the efficacy of standard anticancer therapies. One of the essential strategies during cancer treatment is following a healthy diet program. The ketogenic diet (KD) has recently emerged as a metabolic therapy in cancer treatment, targeting cancer cell metabolism rather than a conventional dietary approach. The ketogenic diet (KD), a high-fat and very-low-carbohydrate with adequate amounts of protein, has shown antitumor effects by reducing energy supplies to cells. This low energy supply inhibits tumor growth, explaining the ketogenic diet’s therapeutic mechanisms in cancer treatment. This review highlights the crucial mechanisms that explain the ketogenic diet’s potential antitumor effects, which probably produces an unfavorable metabolic environment for cancer cells and can be used as a promising adjuvant in cancer therapy. Studies discussed in this review provide a solid background for researchers and physicians to design new combination therapies based on KD and conventional therapies.
Highlights
Results from other clinical studies indicated that sufficient therapeutic activity was not achieved when a ketogenic diet was used as the only treatment in patients with cancer. These results suggest that to achieve the potential benefits of such diets, they should be used in combination with other treatment strategies, including chemotherapy, radiotherapy, antiangiogenic treatments, phosphatidylinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) inhibitors, and fasting-mimicking diet [22,27]
This role of serine has motivated the investigation of phosphoglycerate dehydrogenase enzyme (PHGDH) as a target for cancer therapy since it is involved in the synthesis of serine [93]
Cancer cells are characterized by metabolic disorders that lead to a high uptake of glucose
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Each one of these interventions has its own limitations that can be an obstacle to both healthcare providers and patients to reach the desirable objectives; for example, the advanced stage of cancer and metastasis level renders the surgical procedure unreasonable and not effective Both chemotherapy and radiation therapy have cancer induction effects that may lead to secondary tumors and various toxicity issues inducing normal-tissue complications; these factors and others put pressure on the medical body to find new, safe, and cost-effective cancer therapy agents [3]. This is achieved by following the standard fat to carbohydrate and protein ratio of 4:1 and 3:1, respectively [20] Another recent study has suggested that the clinical use of KD is composed of at least 80% fat with a KD ratio of 2:1 to. We will describe the history of the ketogenic diet, details concerning cancer metabolism and the Warburg effect, the mechanism of action for the ketogenic diet as a cancer therapy and the clinical and experimental studies regarding the use of KD as an anti-cancer therapy
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
