We all know that a diet high in fiber is good for us, with studies suggesting that consuming a high-fiber diet can lower an individual’s risk for some cancers. Now, researchers are looking into whether a high-fiber diet can help patients with cancer fight a cancer diagnosis by boosting immunotherapy effectiveness.
Previous research involving melanoma patients already determined that those with diets that were high in fiber responded better to immunotherapy. At the forefront of this latest research is assistant professor Brendan Guercio from the Wilmot Cancer Institute. Guercio has specialized in hematology/oncology and works as a medical oncologist who mainly treats cancers of the genitourinary tract. He is especially focused on exploring whether a diet high in fiber can improve how patients with kidney or bladder cancer respond to immunotherapies.
Guercio stated that immunotherapies were often well-tolerated and could control cancer for a long time. However, it did not mean that they were effective for everyone. Immunotherapies are designed to train an individual’s immune system to fight cancer. The human immune system is influenced by gut bacteria, with prior research showing that these bacteria influence how well patients respond to immunotherapy.
Guercio explained that bacteria in the gut consumed what we ate, which meant that feeding eating nutrients that the bacteria need to perform better could have an effect on a person’s immune system since the bacteria interacted with it.
Before he joined Wilmot in 2022, Guercio carried out a pilot study that demonstrated a link between the survival of patients with bladder cancer on immunotherapy treatments and a high-fiber diet. Renal cell carcinoma is a common type of kidney cancer that often begins in the lining of small tubes in the kidney. The research, whose findings were reported in the “Journal of Clinical Oncology,” demonstrated a similar trend for patients with renal cell carcinoma.
Despite these positive findings, however, Guercio believes that more studies need to be done in order to observe whether that effect may be significant.
Earlier this year, the Kidney Cancer Association awarded the good professor the Interdisciplinary RCC Focus Award to support this research. With this one-year grant, he plans to collect data on diets as well as stool and blood samples from 120 patients with renal cell carcinoma from Memorial Sloan Kettering and Wilmot. Once this is done, he will compare patients on immunotherapy to those who haven’t started the treatment yet, then assess whether the amount of fiber in each patient’s diet affects the type and number of bacteria in their gut.
In addition to this, he will also examine patients’ overall survival and progression-free survival, as well as whether consuming a high-fiber diet while on immunotherapy treatment can help shrink tumors. It is important to note that this does not mean that diet is a substitute for standard cancer treatments.
The outcome of this study on the effect of dietary fiber on the clinical outcomes of administering immunotherapy to cancer patients could inform how best patients can benefit from the immunotherapies being developed by companies such as Renovaro BioSciences Inc. (NASDAQ: RENB).
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to Renovaro BioSciences Inc. (NASDAQ: RENB) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/RENB
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