2024-03-21 18:14:00
(ANSA) – ROME, MARCH 19 – A ‘fasting-mimicking’ diet combined with targeted pharmacological therapies could offer new treatment options for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). These are in summary the results of the study conducted by researchers from the National Cancer Institute of Milan (Int) and the Institute of Molecular Oncology of the Airc Foundation (Ifom Ets), published in the journal ‘Cancer Research’. Already in the past, researchers from the ‘Longevity & Cancer’ laboratory, led by Valter Longo at Ifom, had demonstrated that the fasting-mimicking diet makes chemotherapy, immunotherapy and other treatments more effective against various types of solid tumors. “In this new study – explains Longo – we instead focused on the search for a less toxic therapy for the treatment of blood cancer”. Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is the most common type of leukemia in Western countries (15-20% of all cases). “It is a complex disease – continues Longo – with aggressive and indolent forms that require distinct therapeutic approaches”. While the former must be treated immediately, for the indolent forms doctors often follow a ‘watch and wait’ strategy which allows them to monitor the clinical evolution of patients and start pharmacological treatments only in case of worsening. “Thanks to the work conducted by Franca Raucci and Claudio Vernieri, the two first authors of the article – continues Longo – we observed, in experiments with mice affected by leukemia, that the fasting-mimicking diet can partially neutralize tumor lymphocytes. This seems to happen partly thanks to the reduction in levels of growth factors, which in itself appears to slow tumor progression.” The data collected will have to be confirmed in broader research, however “in this study the effects of eight consecutive cycles of fasting-mimicking diet in two patients suffering from LLC were also examined – explains Vernieri -. After 5-6 years of a watch and wait, neither of them needed to start pharmacological treatment.” The integration of cyclic fasting with targeted non-chemotherapeutic drugs could be the therapeutic strategy to follow. “By combining fasting or fasting mimicking diet cycles with bortezomib and rituximab – concludes Raucci – a strong enhancement of the effect against the pathology is obtained”. (HANDLE).
2024-03-21 18:14:00