Curbing Chemo: Fasting cushions drug’s side effects in mice

A new study in mice suggests a connection between short-term starvation and the ability to tolerate chemotherapy.

Starving cancer-ridden mice for two days sent the animals’ bodies into a “maintenance mode” that protected their healthy cells from a harsh chemo drug but left cancerous cells vulnerable.

Chemotherapy drugs kill healthy cells as well as cancerous ones, so targeting drugs more narrowly at tumors is a major goal of cancer research.