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Low carb diet may stunt prostate tumor growth
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A study conducted in mice suggests a potential link between carbohydrate intake and prostate tumor growth. In the study, researchers observed significantly less tumor growth in mice fed a no-carbohydrate diet compared to those fed a Western-style diet.
"There is a link between diet and prostate cancer," Dr. Stephen J. Freedland of Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, told Reuters Health. "What exactly that link is and how best to use it to prevent and treat prostate cancer remains unclear."
Recent studies have suggested that carbohydrate intake may influence prostate cancer biology, Freedland and colleagues note in a report in the journal Prostate. To investigate further, they compared prostate tumor growth in 75 mice equally separated into three diet groups.
The no-carb diet provided zero percent carbohydrates and 84 percent fat; the low-fat diet provided 72 percent carbohydrate and 12 percent fat; and the Western diet provided 44 percent carbohydrate and 40 percent fat. All three diets provided 16 percent of the total calories as protein.
The researchers found that mice fed a no-carb diet had tumor volumes up to 33 percent smaller, on average, than mice fed the Western-style diet. Average tumor volumes did not differ significantly between mice eating the low-fat or Western diets.
Mice fed the no-carb diet also had significantly prolonged survival relative to mice fed the Western diet.
The researchers observed that the no-carb diet was associated with a reduction in serum insulin and insulin-like growth factor type 1 (IGF-1) -- a protein that helps spur cells to multiply and has been implicated in the cancer process -- and with an increase in a related protein called IGF-BP3, which blocks the action of IGF-1.
Within a year, the investigators hope to assess how following a low carbohydrate diet for one month prior to prostate cancer surgery might impact tumor growth in men.
But Freedland cautions that clinical trials, such as this, need to replicate animal study findings before any general claims concerning carbohydrate intake and prostate tumor growth can be made in humans.
SOURCE: The Prostate online edition, November 13, 2007
Reuters Health