Reacción a "Reactions: a ketogenic diet could improve the low platelet count caused by chemotherapy"

This is another interesting nice story pointing to the beneficial effects of ketogenic diet in disease treatment.

Here the authors demonstrate that ketogenic diet reduces thrombocytopenia, which is a severe complication in patients with cancer treated with chemotherapy, and can lead to limitations in the efficacy of chemotherapy and even to cease the treatment, affecting patient survival. Mechanistically, the authors demonstrate that the ketone body B-hydroxybutyrate changes the epigenetic profile of the blood cells to promote platelet formation.

The ketogenic diet has also been shown to have beneficial effects against several types of cancer and may have multiple beneficial effects in these patients, including alleviating chemotherapy-induced thrombocytopenia and possibly other adverse effects.   

It is noteworthy to say that fasting, fasting-mimicking diets or calorie restriction might have similarities and similar mechanisms of action, since ketogenesis and production of ketone bodies has been observed in subjects following these diets. However, many patients may find prolonged fasting or calorie restriction difficult to maintain and to tolerate, due to diverse effects, such as fatigue, headache, nausea, constipation, hypoglycaemia and acidosis, therefore approaches that do not limit caloric intake like the ketogenic diet may be more useful in cancer therapy.

The ketogenic diet is cheap and very often well tolerated by patients, but it is important to establish personalized treatments for specific cancer types and patients. It is also essential identifying small molecules and therapeutic targets, such as B-hydroxybutyrate, to establish novel lines of treatment and circumvent needs for dietary interventions.