title: A reason for intermittent fasting to suppress the awakening of dormant breast tumors.
abstract: For their growth, dormant tumors, which lack angiogenesis may critically depend on gradients of nutrients and oxygen from the nearest blood vessel. Because for oxygen depletion the distance from the nearest blood vessel to depletion will generally be shorter than for glucose depletion, such tumors will contain anoxic living tumor cells. These cells are dangerous, because they are capable of inducing angiogenesis, which will "wake up" the tumor. Anoxic cells are dependent on anaerobic glucose breakdown for ATP generation. The local extracellular glucose concentration gradient is determined by the blood glucose concentration and by consumption by cells closer to the nearest blood vessel. The blood glucose concentration can be lowered by 20-40% during fasting. We calculated that glucose supply to the potentially hazardous anoxic cells can thereby be reduced significantly, resulting in cell death specifically of the anoxic tumor cells. We hypothesize that intermittent fasting will help to reduce the incidence of tumor relapse via reducing the number of anoxic tumor cells and tumor awakening.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Cell Physiology, VU University, De Boelelaan 1085, Room G-226a, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Electronic address: j.lankelma@vu.nl.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lankelma
authors.affiliation: Department of Theoretical Biology, VU University, De Boelelaan 1085, 1081HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Bob
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kooi
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Cell Physiology, VU University, De Boelelaan 1085, Room G-226a, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Klaas
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Krab
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Genetics, VU University Medical Center, Van der Boechorststraat 7, 1081 BT Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Josephine C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Dorsman
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Genetics, VU University Medical Center, Van der Boechorststraat 7, 1081 BT Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Hans
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Joenje
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Cell Physiology, VU University, De Boelelaan 1085, Room G-226a, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Synthetic Systems Biology, SILS, University of Amsterdam and Manchester Centre for Integrative Systems Biology, The University of Manchester, UK.
authors.forename: Hans V
authors.initials: HV
authors.lastname: Westerhoff
mesh_terms: D001786:Blood Glucose / Q000502:physiology; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000503:physiopathology*; D015687:Cell Hypoxia / Q000502:physiology*; D005215:Fasting / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D009364:Neoplasm Recurrence, Local / Q000517:prevention & control*; D009389:Neovascularization, Pathologic / Q000503:physiopathology*
chemical_list: D001786:Blood Glucose
keywords: Anoxia; Cheap cancer treatment; Dormant breast cancer; Fasting; Glucose tissue gradient; Oxygen tissue gradient