How fasting boosts breast cancer therapy

"People with this type of cancer typically receive endocrine therapy, involving oestrogen-blocking drugs such as tamoxifen, but the development of resistance to this treatment is a common clinical challenge. One way to enhance the effectiveness of endocrine therapy and delay the emergence of resistance is through periodic fasting, when, under clinical supervision, people restrict their eating and consume few or no calories for time spans of hours to days on a regular cycle."

"A discovery in mice reveals why fasting enhances a type of breast cancer treatment - a hormone-signalling pathway and gene-expression changes have key roles. A hallmark of most breast cancers is the expression of a hormone receptor called oestrogen receptor-α (ERα). People with this type of cancer typically receive endocrine therapy, involving oestrogen-blocking drugs such as tamoxifen, but the development of resistance to this treatment is a common clinical challenge."

Periodic fasting sensitizes ERα-positive breast cancers to endocrine therapy and delays the emergence of resistance. Fasting involves supervised cycles of caloric restriction lasting hours to days and alters systemic hormone signalling. These hormone-signalling changes remodel oestrogen-receptor activity and provoke tumour gene-expression shifts that increase responsiveness to oestrogen-blocking drugs such as tamoxifen. Mouse experiments reveal mechanistic links between intermittent nutrient deprivation, altered endocrine signals, and transcriptional reprogramming in tumours that together enhance therapeutic efficacy and slow the development of endocrine resistance.

Read at Nature