BRCA Main Home Nutritional Intervention-random Study

Women carrying harmful mutation in BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene are at higher risk to develop breast and/or ovarian cancer than the general population. Many observations lead to the hypothesis that breast cancer risk may be increased in women with elevated plasma insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) and insulin levels. Targeting the IGF system is therefore a promising anticancer therapy and a new tool for oncologists. Evidence from bio-gerontology research from our laboratories show that cycles of short-term fasting/starvation (STS) or low calorie diet can improve health span of laboratory animals, whose effect is partly mediated by reduced circulating IGF-1. Investigators in our group have demonstrated that protein consumption, especially animal proteins, increases IGF-1 level and is associated with elevated cancer risk in a US cohort ranging from age 50 to 65 (PMID: 26094889). It was also showed that alternating prolonged fasting and nutrient-rich medium extended yeast lifespan independently of the status of the established pro-longevity genes. Prolonged Fasting (PF) has also been shown in preliminary studies to decrease the side effects of chemotherapy, an effect now being tested in multiple larger randomized clinical trials (PMID: 26590477). The main hypothesis of this proposal is that a combination of protein restriction, fasting, fasting mimicking diet (FMD), and restriction of specific amino acids may be able to decrease cancer incidence in a cohort of people at high risk of developing tumors (BRCA1/2). Our group plan to verify the safety, effectiveness and impact of a specially formulated longevity dietary regimen (low protein fish- and plant-based) and of FMD repeated cycles on the levels of endogenous hormones in a cohort of people at increased cancer risk. Since the duration of the project will not give us the opportunity to directly measure cancer incidence in humans we will test: 1a) the variation of a number of widely recognized susceptibility biomarkers predic