The effect of Short-term fasting in combination with chemotherapy on cancer patients.

Abstract

Fasting and Short-term fasting during chemotherapy with different cancer types are safe, feasible, and well-tolerated for cancer patients. The systematic review in this project showed that fasting and STF could be beneficial because they play important roles for metabolic changes such as reducing DNA damage levels and reducing the levels of IGF-1 in the fasting group compared to non-fasting group. This suggested that fasting and STF are effective when combined with chemotherapy. Moreover, according to meta-analysis findings, we can conclude that STF and fasting in combination with chemotherapy could reduce side effects associated with chemotherapy. The meta-analysis findings showed that there is a significant reduction in fatigue in the fasting group with different cycles, while thenon-fasting group had higher levels of fatigue than fasting group. However, in the meta-analysis results there were no significant differences, by looking at the results carefully we can notice that there were clinical differences between the two groups but no statistical differences.