A ketogenic diet — consisting of high-fat, low-carb foods — may boost treatment outcomes for people suffering from pancreatic cancer, according to a mice study.

Scientists at the University of California -San Francisco discovered a way to get rid of pancreatic cancer in mice by putting them on a high-fat diet and giving them cancer therapy.

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The cancer therapy blocks fat metabolism, which is cancer’s only source of fuel for as long as the mice remain on the ketogenic diet, and the tumours stop growing, they said in the paper published in the journal Nature.

The team first uncovered how 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, thanks to eIF4E, when an animal is on a ketogenic diet.

They found that a new cancer drug called eFT508, currently in clinical trials, blocks eIF4E and the ketogenic pathway, preventing the body from metabolising fat. When the scientists combined the drug with a ketogenic diet in an animal model of pancreatic cancer, the cancer cells starved.

The findings “open a point of vulnerability that we can treat with a clinical inhibitor that we already know is safe in humans”, said Davide Ruggero, Professor at UCSF.

In the study, the scientists first treated pancreatic cancer with a cancer drug called eFT508 that disables eIF4E, intending to block tumour growth. However, sustained by other sources of fuel like glucose and carbohydrates, the pancreatic tumours continued to grow.

But when placed on a ketogenic diet, it forced the tumours to consume fats alone. Adding the drugs cut off the cancer cells’ only sustenance — and the tumours shrank.

Ruggero said that there is “firm evidence” how diet can along with cancer therapies help “to precisely eliminate cancer” and may pave the way for personalised treatment.