The position of low carb diet in the cancer adjuvant therapy: Clinical nutrition with low carb diet in cancer patients

Abstract

Low carbohydrate diet (Low Carb Diet; LCD) is known for ages and exert a positive effect on the health-related quality of life in plenty of people [1]. It is also used over 100 years as a therapeutic tool in various illnesses. In epilepsy this – and the more aggressive version, the ketogenic diet (KD) – is a well-accepted evidence-based treatment modality for patients suffering from pharmacotherapy resistant type of the illness [2]. LCD is also used as a slimming diet among others under the name “Atkins diet“, that has been introduced for public ca. 50 years ago (Atkins Nutritional Approach). However, originally it was developed by cardiologist Robert C. Atkins to publish his concept of healthy eating to help patients with obesity and related health problems (mainly cardiovascular disease, today, in a broader sense, the cardiometabolic syndrome). Public advantages of its moderate version has also been recently demonstrated by NIPPON DATA [3]. Oncological use of carbohydrate-restricted diet started earlier but research activity of Nobel laureate (1924) Otto Warburg supplied the real scientific background to continue this type of therapy in cancer patients. According to his hypothesis tumor cells mainly get energy from anaerobic glycolysis that is not normal in healthy human cells [4]. Of course, we know already that tumor cell metabolism is much more complex.