Yanxiang Guo, PhD

Ketogenic diet has been proposed as a novel, nontoxic, cost-effective adjuvant therapy in combination with chemotherapy and radiation therapy in the treatment of cancer. However, the role of ketogenic dietary interventions in cancer treatment remains controversial due to insufficient preclinical mouse studies and imperfect clinical trial designs. In preclinical mouse models, our preliminary studies of different subgroups of non-small cell lung cancer with mutations in the KRAS gene exhibit differential responses to a ketogenic diet in tumor growth. We will further elucidate the underlying mechanisms and determine whether the ketogenic diet can serve as an adjuvant to cancer therapy in the treatment of KRAS-mutant non-small cell lung cancer, a type of lung cancer with the lowest survival, worse prognosis and poor response rates to standard cancer treatments.

Update:

Our preliminary studies conducted using mouse models revealed that the ketogenic diet effectively suppresses tumor development in a subtype of KRAS-mutant lung cancer known as KP lung cancer. It also induces changes in how the immune system responds within the tumor environment of KP lung cancer. Currently, our research is focused on understanding how these changes in immune responses contribute to the tumor-shrinking effects of the ketogenic diet.  We also aim to explore the potential of the diet immunotherapy to make it more effective in treating KP lung cancer.