Starving Cancer with Methionine Restriction
Channel: NutritionFacts.org
Date: 2013-09-18

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DESCRIPTION: Methionine restriction—best achieved through a plant-based diet—may prove to have a major impact on patients with cancer because unlike normal tissues, many human tumors require the amino acid methionine to grow.

This video can be considered a companion to Anti-Angiogenesis: Cutting Off Tumor Supply Lines (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/anti-angiogenesis-cutting-off-tumor-supply-lines), in which this same diet could starve these same tumors of their blood supply. 

There are compounds in animal products that may actually stimulate tumor growth. See How Tumors Use Meat to Grow: Xeno-Autoantibodies (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/how-tumors-use-meat-to-grow-xeno-autoantibodies/). Animal protein may also boost levels of the cancer-promoting hormone IGF-1 (The Answer to the Pritikin Puzzle, http://nutritionfacts.org/video/the-answer-to-the-pritikin-puzzle/). Combined, this could all help explain why plants and plant-based diets have been found effective in potentially reversing some cancer processes. See Cancer Reversal Through Diet? (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/cancer-reversal-through-diet/), Strawberries versus Esophageal Cancer (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/strawberries-versus-esophageal-cancer/), and Black Raspberries versus Oral Cancer (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/black-raspberries-versus-oral-cancer/).

Sorry if you were distracted by the pet puns—I couldn't help it! :) Another way companion animals may protect against cancer is explored here: Pets & Human Lymphoma (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/pets-human-lymphoma/).

Why might the medical profession be so resistant to therapies proven to be effective? The Tomato Effect (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/the-tomato-effect/) may be partially to blame.

If you were looking closely at the title of the review (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22342103) I featured, noting that plant-based diets may prove to be a useful nutritional strategy in cancer growth control, you'll notice it also looked at the role of methionine restriction in life-span extension. That's the topic of the next video Methionine Restriction as a Life Extension Strategy (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/methionine-restriction-as-a-life-extension-strategy).

Have a question for Dr. Greger about this video? Leave it in the comment section at http://nutritionfacts.org/video/starving-cancer-with-methionine-restriction/ and he'll try to answer it!

Image Credit: USDA, Gajda-13, California Department of Fish and Game, Pingpongwill, Kacper “Kangel” Aniołek, NMajik, Wilfredo R. Rodriguez H., Scarce, Ranko, & The Noun Project via Wikimedia; and Veganbaking.net & the queen of subtle via Flickr.

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