Will a balanced diet limit the spread of cancer cells?

There is currently no direct evidence-based medical evidence to prove that a balanced diet can actively inhibit and limit the spread of cancer cells, but it is the core basic support for cancer patients during the entire treatment and recovery stage, and may even indirectly affect the treatment effect and the probability of recurrence and metastasis.

Many people tend to go to two extremes when it comes to their understanding of this issue. They either deify diet and believe that "eating right can fight cancer" and randomly try various anti-cancer recipes and fasting therapies posted on the Internet;

The year before last, I followed up a 62-year-old aunt who had undergone surgery for lung adenocarcinoma. I heard from fellow patients that "high-nutrition foods will feed the cancer cells." So she cut out all meat, eggs, and milk when she got home. She drank white porridge with stir-fried cabbage every day, and didn't even dare to add more oil. She lost 14 pounds in less than two months. During the reexamination, her albumin was as low as 27g/L, and her immunity was so bad. A little cold developed into pneumonia, and the scheduled adjuvant chemotherapy was postponed for almost a month. Later, micro-metastasis in the pleura was detected. The attending doctor told her family that her physical condition was so bad that she could not even run her own immune cells. The defense line that could have prevented the cancer cells from running around collapsed first, but this gave the cancer cells an opportunity.

Of course, this does not mean that diet has no effect at all. Many cutting-edge studies are currently exploring the relationship between diet and tumor microenvironment. A small sample clinical trial published in "Nature Cancer" last year mentioned that when melanoma patients receiving immunotherapy were given a balanced diet high in fiber, sufficient high-quality protein and unsaturated fatty acids, nearly 40% of the patients had an increase in the activity of killer T cells in the tumor microenvironment. The response rate to immunotherapy was nearly 20% higher than that of a control group who ate a random diet. To put it bluntly, it is not that diet directly kills cancer cells or prevents them from spreading, but that if you provide your body with enough "food, grass and ammunition", your own anti-cancer "regular army" can work well. If the regular army is hungry and faints, no matter how many targeted drugs and immune drugs are used, they will not be able to play their maximum role.

There are now different opinions on this issue in the academic community. Some niche studies have mentioned that ketogenic diet and calorie-restricted diet have certain auxiliary inhibitory effects on specific tumor types such as glioma. However, the sample sizes of these studies are very small and there is no large-scale clinical data support. They cannot be generalized to all cancer patients, let alone directly assert that eating can limit the spread of cancer cells.

I followed up a 38-year-old patient with stage III intestinal cancer last year. From the beginning of chemotherapy, he strictly followed the individualized diet given by the nutrition department. Every day, he ensured 1 egg, 2 taels of lean beef tenderloin or fish and shrimp, 300ml of pure milk, one pound of green leafy vegetables and half a pound of low GI water. Fruit, I would occasionally eat two bites of small cakes brought by my family to satisfy my cravings. During the entire chemotherapy period, I only lost 2 pounds. My white blood cells were never low enough to require white blood injections. I completed 6 rounds of chemotherapy smoothly. Now, no metastases have been found in the follow-up examination 3 years after the surgery. He himself said that he felt that he ate enough nutritious food every day and felt strong. Even if he felt nauseous and uncomfortable during the chemotherapy days, he could get out of bed and walk a few steps without collapsing on the bed. Of course, his lack of recurrence must be the result of the combined effects of surgery, chemotherapy, and postoperative follow-up, but the supporting role of diet cannot be ignored.

To put it bluntly, there is really no need to deify or belittle the role of a balanced diet. It is not a "magic drug" that can directly prevent the spread of cancer cells, but it can support your entire anti-cancer process, allowing you to withstand the side effects of treatment, and allowing regular treatment methods to maximize their effects. This is important enough.