The Rat Fan Club
Using Diet to Treat Tumors in Rats
by Terry Lee Gonzalez
updated 9/21/15
I’m a
nutritionist. A while back I
started reading Thomas Seyfried’s research and book, where he makes the
bold statement that cancer is a metabolic disease, not a genetic disease. Thomas Seyfried is a PhD at
Thomas Seyfried has been
doing research on origin and management of cancer for over 20 years. There are a number of videos, podcasts
and written interviews of Dr. Seyfried on the Internet, along with full-text
articles that have been published in numerous journals. They’re definitely worth listening
to. To find them, do the following
search on Google to find some of his interviews, both podcast and video …
Thomas Seyfried interview
cancer
If you’d like to read
abstracts of his published research, go here:
There are two schools of
thought as it relates to cancer.
One is that it is a genetic disease … you inherit a predisposition
to cancer. There are billions and
billions of dollars spent on researching gene sequencing, gene expression, how
cancer cells mutate and customized therapies based on those mutations.
The other school of thought
is that due to any number of reasons like age or the many chemicals we’re
exposed to, the mitochondria in the cells become damaged, and the cells have to
switch from normal energy metabolism (oxidative phosphorylation) to a different
type of energy metabolism (fermentation).
This defect in cellular energy production is one of the things that
defines cancer cells.
So, if virtually all cancer
cells have defects in cellular respiration, in how they produce energy, does
this provide us an opportunity to exploit those defects?
Abso-darn-lutely!
The normal (non-cancerous)
cells in our body can use blood sugar or fat for energy. This goes back to when we were cavemen
and we went through times of feast and famine. In the summer we had access to fruit and
vegetables, nuts and honey and the occasional animal that we cooked over the
fire. And then there were times,
maybe in the winter, when snow fell, where food was scarce and we depended on
stored body fat to stay alive.
The difference between the
normal cells in our body and cancer cells is that with only a few exceptions,
the normal cells can use dietary fat (the fat we eat), stored body fat, or
blood sugar as sources of energy.
Cancer cells, on the other hand can ONLY use blood sugar for energy. Cancer cells cannot use dietary fat,
stored body fat, free fatty acids, or ketones (important word, here!), which
are byproducts of fat metabolism, for energy.
So what Thomas Seyfried has
done in his research in mice is to drop blood sugar levels to very low levels,
which results in the body switching over to using fat and ketones for
energy. Essentially, he’s
using what is called a ketogenic diet, which is a diet high in fat, moderate to
low in protein and very low in carbohydrates.
Although the Atkins Diet is
also ketogenic, the difference is that it is high protein, high fat, low
carb, while Dr. Seyfried’s diet is high fat, moderate to low
protein, low carb. Dr. Seyfried’s diet is often designated as KD-R, which
stands for calorie-restricted ketogenic diet.
Calorie restriction is a key
element in Seyfried’s dietary approach. For someone (human) or for an
animal with cancer, the diet is very strict, 90% of calories coming from fat
and 10% of calories coming from protein and carbs. You’ll see it designated as a 4:1
KD-R. That means for every gram of
protein and carbs, the diet has 4 grams of fat. For humans, I use the USDA
National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference Release 27 to
determine the grams of protein, fat and carbs. For animals, when I’m creating a
4:1 KD-R, I contact the manufacturer and speak with their nutritionist on
staff. When creating a ketogenic
diet for one of my rats with a benign mammary tumor, I contacted Dr. Tollefson
at Mazuri and got the specs for one of their retail products and measured out
an appropriate amount of rat blocks, which I reduced to powder and added some
grass-fed tallow from Whole Foods that I had rendered myself, along with some
medium chain triglycerides (a really good type of fat for producing ketones and
for energy levels!). The result was
rat food that was just slightly over 85% fat.
Though it isn’t easy to
implement when you’re doing something like this the very first time, the
protocol for a mouse or rat with cancer isn’t that complicated. Over the course of 32 days, I needed to
create a caloric deficit that would result in a 20% weight loss. And it needed to be done with nutrition
(food) that was high in fat … in my case, 85% fat.
I separated Lauren (my rat
with the benign mammary tumor) from the rest of the rats so that she would have
no access to food, other than that which I provided her. For emotional enrichment, I put other
rats in the cage with her after they’re done eating. I weigh Lauren every day on a scale
that measures to an accuracy of 0.1 grams.
Cost was about $17. On Day 1
of the protocol, Lauren weighed 357 grams.
20% of that amount is 71.4 grams, which is how much she needs to lose
over the course of 32 days. That
works out to an average of 2.138 grams per day. So basically, I track her weight loss in
a spreadsheet and raise and lower the amount of food I give her to keep her on
track.
Lauren is not fed ad libitum
(free access). In the beginning I
had to guess how much she needed, and I offered her 10 grams of food. She wasn’t that hungry in the
beginning and turned her nose up at what I offered. By the time I hit Day 7, I had reduced
the amount of food I was offering considerably (less than half). A couple more days passed, and she is
offered 2 grams twice a day. She
eats what I offer voraciously and would eat more if I offered it, but I need to
keep her on track, so that she hits the 20% reduction in body weight. Withholding food from an animal you love
really is the hardest part of following the protocol (diet). But if it saves an animal’s life,
if it saves the life of someone you love – another pet or even a human
– how could I not stick to my guns?
Dr. Seyfried had determined
that the difference in metabolism between mice and humans is that a
mouse’s metabolism is 7 to 8 times faster than a human’s. So a reduction of 40% in a mouse’s
diet is equivalent to putting a human on a water-only fast because of the body
fat most humans have. A
mouse’s nutritional intake (the number of kilocalories being consumed)
cannot be reduced more than 40% without starvation. Starvation is different from fasting in
the respect that stored body fat has been used up and essential organs are
being broken down to meet energy requirements … the end result being
death if it progresses too far. So there are differences in how the protocol is
implemented when used for a rat or mouse or a dog or a human.
The KD-R works with virtually
all cancers, even cancers of the blood.
And it works quickly … shockingly so. Elaine Cantin resolved her cancer in
about two weeks’ time and wrote a book. Here’s a link to her story and
Fred Hatfield’s story …
Ketogenic
Diet for Cancer – Two Testimonials of Healing (Fred Hatfield & Elaine
Cantin
For anyone with a deeper
interest in nutrition – for anyone who has taken a course in biochemistry
and who isn’t afraid of the technical language, Dr. Seyfried’s book
is a gold mine about the origin, management and even prevention of cancer. It’s not a cheap book. I got mine on Amazon for $100, but the
information that lies with has given me the knowledge and understanding to
implement the protocol. And having
read the book, for the first time in my life, I know EXACTLY what I would do if
I got cancer. And I know exactly
what to do if one of my pets gets cancer.
How to Measure Effectiveness
The results of the KD-R on
blood sugar can (and SHOULD) be measured along the way with the Glucose-Ketone
Index. It’s a quick easy
calculation that involves drawing a drop of blood, just like you do to measure
blood sugar. The only difference is
that you use a special meter that measures blood sugar
On a normal diet if you were
to measure ketones and blood sugar, you’d see that blood sugar was high
and that ketones were very low. By
reducing carbs, protein and increasing the percentage of calories coming from
fat while creating a caloric deficit, you can switch it so that ketones are
higher than blood sugar. This
is what Thomas Seyfried calls the Therapeutic Window. Below is a picture …
Don’t get caught up in
the fact that blood glucose and ketones are measure in millimoles. It’s just another quick
conversion. Stuff always seems more
technical when you’re doing it for the first time.
For more info, see this
article: The
glucose ketone index calculator: a simple tool to monitor therapeutic efficacy
for metabolic management of brain cancer.
Here is a video that shows how I take blood from a rat for the blood glucose test, which you will need to do three times a week. https://youtu.be/yBAg8ajwpU0
Another way to measure the
effectiveness of ANY cancer treatment is to compare PET scans. The reason PET scans are interesting to
me is because it is a visual representation of how sugar avid (meaning
“sugar loving”) cancer cells are. Prior to the test, the patient is given
a radioactive sugar drink, which the tumor cells take up to a greater degree
than the other cells in the body.
Then the technician takes a picture of the whole body, and you can see
whether the cancer has grown or spread or gotten smaller. Cancer cells have more glucose
transporters on the surface of their cells, so while the rest of the cells of
the body are deprived of blood sugar, the tumor thrives and grows and spreads.
Knowing that cancer cells
require sugar to survive and grow and spread, does it make any sense that
people going for cancer treatment are offered juice, soda, crackers, cookies,
and candy bars … all things that provide the cancer cells with the energy
it needs to grow?!? My personal opinion is that KD-R is more effective than
what is the current “standard of care” in the treatment of brain
cancer.
Dr. Seyfried’s work is
specific to cancer, not species.
The research was done on mice to benefit humans. I’ve used it to address a benign
mammary tumor in a rat. People have
used the protocol on their dog. One
lady sent Dr. Seyfried before and after pictures of a tumor on her dog’s
lip. It was the size of a golf
ball. She was offered chemotherapy,
radiation and surgery by her vet.
She declined. Somehow she
found Dr. Seyfried’s published articles and listened to some of his video
interviews. She calculated her
dog’s caloric requirements (how much he WAS eating). She calculated a caloric deficit. She started feeding him a ketogenic diet
high in fat (probably close to 90%), and when the tumor resolved (disappeared),
she sent Dr. Seyfried pictures and a letter of thanks. I think what is most exciting to me
about this story is that highly motivated, non-medical professionals are able
to implement this therapy and not put a loved one (a dog, in this case) through
cancer treatments that are toxic and barbaric and take away all quality of
life. So yes, it works in people
Time for pictures, which they
say are worth a thousand words … The first picture, Day 1, shows
Lauren’s tumor dragging the ground.
The second picture was on Day 9, and the third, Day 25. Even though
I’m not a photographer, I think the pictures show the progress
we’ve made. Even though
Lauren’s tumor is more than likely benign, and Dr. Seyfried’s
protocol is used more often in the non-benign types of cancer and in cancers
that have metastasized, it still seems to be working, and quite quickly.
And yes, Lauren was born with
only one eye. She is (at the time
this document was written) 20 months of age and is unspayed. She’s actually the smallest rat in
my mischief, weighing in at 344.8 grams on Day 9). She’s a black
Requirements for working with
Terry on the high-fat, restricted-calorie anti-tumor diet for rats:
1. Are you willing to make a
32-day commitment to the protocol?
2. Are you willing to
measure, weigh, count, record and report your results to me so that we can make
adjustments to the amount of food your rat is eating along the way? You will be
measuring your rat’s weight daily, food weight daily, blood sugar &
ketone levels three times a week.
3. Are you precise (or at
least try to be), and are you willing to follow the protocol strictly?
4. Are you willing to spend
extra time on your rat’s behalf? It takes me about 10-15 minutes to weigh
my rat and weigh the food and take blood sugar & ketone levels. The first
few times will take longer because you don’t know what you’re
doing.
5. Are you willing to spend a
little money on your rat’s behalf? You need a scale that measures
to 0.1 grams and a ketone and blood sugar meter. You also need test
strips to test blood sugar and test strips to measure ketones. I use a
ReliOn blood glucose meter at Walmart because the test strips are cheaper than
any of the other blood glucose meters
Precision Xtra meter,
$30.60
Abbott Precision Xtra
Ketone Test Strips, $39 per 10 test strips
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00R219D4E?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00
Smart Weigh Digital Pro
Pocket Scale, $17.22 (weighs your rat in a container and food, both, to a
precision of 1/10 gram … it’s highly precise)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IZ1YHZK?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00
ReliOn Blood Glucose Meter
& Test Strips @ Walmart, approximately $25 for both
Lard
or Tallow from a farmer, food coop, online, or at a health food store, not the
commercial, deodorized stuff. I made my own tallow from grass fed beef
fat purchased at Whole Foods
Coconut
oil purchased from a health food store, cost varies.
6. Are you willing to take
before & after pictures?
7. Are you able to withhold
food to save your rat’s life? This protocol requires that we drop
20% of your rat’s body weight over the course of 32 days. You
cannot give him snacks.
8. Are you able to separate
him from the other rats so that he doesn’t find food other rats have left
behind?
9. Are you willing to help
others and share what you’ve learned and lead others through the
process? As much as I want to, there are only so many people I can help
at one time. So I am really looking for people who are precise and detailed
oriented and who are willing to provide the technical and emotional support
that goes with helping others in the same boat.
For more information, go to
the Facebook group called Long Live Pet Rats.
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