ReviewJournal of traditional and complementary medicine2019
Wilhelm Brünings' forgotten contribution to the metabolic treatment of cancer utilizing hypoglycemia and a very low carbohydrate (ketogenic) diet.
Review in Journal of traditional and complementary medicine, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Ketogenic diets in medical oncology: a systematic review with focus on clinical outcomes.Medical oncology (Northwood, London, England) · 2020Pooled it
- Survival outcomes of rectal and head and neck cancer patients receiving radio(chemo)therapy with a ketogenic diet. A post-hoc analysis from the KETOCOMP trial.Strahlentherapie und Onkologie : Organ der Deutschen Rontgengesellschaft ... [et al] · 2026Article
- Clinical research framework proposal for ketogenic metabolic therapy in glioblastoma.BMC medicine · 2024Review
- Ketogenic diet does not promote triple-negative and luminal mammary tumor growth and metastasis in experimental mice.Clinical & experimental metastasis · 2024Article
- Cancer Metabolism: Fasting Reset, the Keto-Paradox and Drugs for Undoing.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Review
- Thiazolidine-2,4-dione derivative exhibits antitumoral effect and reverts behavioral and metabolic changes in a model of glioblastoma.Metabolic brain disease · 2022Article
- A ketogenic diet exerts beneficial effects on body composition of cancer patients during radiotherapy: An interim analysis of the KETOCOMP study.Journal of traditional and complementary medicine · 2020Article
- Revisiting the Warburg Effect: Diet-Based Strategies for Cancer Prevention.BioMed research international · 2020Review
- Insulin inhibits melanoma tumor growth through the expression of activating transcription factor 4, without detectable expression of transcription factor CHOP: an in vivo model.Anais brasileiros de dermatologiaArticle
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1 author.
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Abstract
The growing interest in the alterations of tumor cell metabolism and their possible therapeutic exploitation also spurred new complementary and integrative approaches such as treating patients with a ketogenic diet (KD). KDs aim at inhibiting glycolytic tumor metabolism and growth, and have therefore been proposed as adjuncts not only to standard-of-care, but also to other therapies targeting tumor metabolism. Here I describe the life and forgotten work of one of the earliest researchers who realized the importance of altered tumor cell metabolism and its possible exploitation through metabolic modifications: Wilhelm Brünings. Brünings was a German natural scientist and physician famous for his innovative contributions to the fields of physiology and otorhinolaryngology. Based on the findings of Otto Warburg and his physiological reasoning he started to experiment with insulin administration and KDs in his patients with head and neck cancers, aiming to maximally lower blood glucose concentrations. He obtained encouraging short-term results, although most tumors became refractory to treatment after several weeks. His pioneering work is worth revisiting, especially for an international readership that may be unaware of his efforts, as hypoglycemic treatments, including the use of insulin injections and KDs, are currently being re-investigated as complementary and integrative cancer treatments.
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