How fasting stops cancer progression in children.

Fasting is a spiritual and physical cleanser as toxins have been flushed from system in a bid to ensure healthy living. Fasting or food restrictions are off various types depending on the purpose or intent. Fasting is also a weight control mechanism where certain individuals are placed on specific food restrictions to optimize health.The types of fast include but are not limited to fruit-fast,where individual takes only fruits or vegetable-fast .where only vegetables are allowed and the water-fast ,where individuals live off water for specified period to rest the digestive tract completely. Scientists have explored the fasting angle to treat life-threatening conditions such as leukemia, according to a new study not eating every alternate day can actually halt the progression of the most common diseases in children as excess fat is known to promote the circulation of leptin, a hormone that aid tumor growth. Leukaemia is cancer of the white blood cells; while the acute leukaemia progresses rapidly and aggressively the Lymphoblastic leukaemia is cancer of the lymphocytes,the white blood cells that fight viral infections thus making people vulnerable to infections. Data shows that one in every 2,000 children will develop it and about 85 per cent of cases occur in children under the age of 15. The signs of lymphoblastic leukamia include Symptoms pale skin, tiredness, breathlessness and repeated infections and the treatment protocols involve a combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy and a sometimes a stem cell transplant is indicated. A study by Researchers from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre, United States, on mice using various dietary restriction plans and published by Nature Medicine used rodents with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia which is the most common type found in children. The researchers marked the cancer cells so they could trace them and determine if their levels rose or fell in response to the fasting treatment, at the end of seven weeks, the fasted mice had almost no detectable cancer cells. Fasting known to reduce the level of leptin, the researchers discovered decreased levels of leptin in the bloodstream as well as in the bone marrow of fasted mice. The effects became more pronounced with repeated cycles of fasting. They also observed that mice that ate normally died within 59 days, while 75 per cent of the fasted mice survived more than four months without signs of leukaemia.