AHS12 Rainer Klement PhD - A Role for a Paleolithic Diet in the Treatment & Prevention of Cancer
Channel: AncestryFoundation
Date: 2013-01-17

Rainer Klement, Ph.D. presenting at the 2nd Annual Ancestral Health Symposium (AHS12).

Is There a Role for a Paleolithic Lifestyle in the Treatment and Prevention of Cancer?

Abstract:
Cancer could be considered a disease of civilization that has consistently been reported to be very rare among uncivilized hunter-gatherer societies. This observation makes sense from an evolutionary perspective from which it is reasonable to assume that the lifestyle factors that protect our genome against tumorigenesis have been selected for early in the history of the genus homo when humans lived as hunter-gatherers.
In this talk, we are going to address the question whether the implementation of a "paleolithic" lifestyle can have beneficial effects in the prevention as well as the treatment of cancer. Thereby, we are going to focus on the roles played by three important factors: regular sun exposure (leading to sufficient vitamin D levels), physical exercise (leading to sufficient muscle mass, inversely correlated to overall mortality due to its anti-inflammatory effects) and diet.
While there is already compelling evidence for the beneficial effects of the former two, the influence of the altered nutritional patterns in the Western diet upon cancer incidence and outcome is less clearly defined. However, based on recent research linking cancer metabolism to diet, we are going to argue that a paleo-oriented, low carbohydrate diet could suppress, or at least delay, the emergence of cancer, and that proliferation of already existing tumor cells could be slowed down.
Overall, the paleolithic lifestyle, including resistance training, may offer a reasonable and valuable possibility of protection against cancer.
Bio:
Rainer Klement, Ph.D., is a medical physicist in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Würzburg, Germany. His research interests focus on tumor metabolism and the effects of ketone bodies on tumor cells in combination with radiotherapy.
Together with Ulrike Kämmerer, a leading expert in the field of ketogenic diets as supportive treatment for cancer patients, he has recently published a highly accessed review article entitled Is there a role for carbohydrate restriction in the treatment and prevention of cancer? in the journal Nutrition & Metabolism.
As an ambitious triathlete, he has a strong interest in a healthy lifestyle and adopted a paleolithic diet some three years ago.