FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, October 19, 2025

❌ Did Cell Mislead the World About Low-Carb Diets and Cancer?

A Dangerous Misunderstanding - And the Silence That Followed

By Richard Z. Cheng, M.D., Ph.D., Lance Long, Thomas Seyfried, Ph.D., and Tomas Duraj, M.D.

🧠 A Confusing Claim: Can Low-Carb Diets Promote Cancer Spread?

A recent article published in Cell - one of the most prestigious journals in science - made a troubling claim: that "glucose restriction" might actually help cancer spread to the lungs.

The study, by Wu et al., caught global attention, especially in China where some of the authors practice. But it also created widespread confusion and fear among doctors, researchers, and cancer patients - not because it presented surprising new data, but because the entire design and interpretation of the study was fundamentally flawed.

⚠️ Not a Low-Carb Study - Just Two High-Glucose Diets

Here's what the researchers actually did:

They fed mice two different experimental diets:

• One diet had 40% carbohydrates
• The other had 60% carbohydrates

Then, they referred to the 40% carb diet as "low-carb" or "glucose-restricted."

But that is scientifically incorrect and highly misleading.

In clinical nutrition and cancer therapy, a true low-carb or ketogenic diet typically contains less than 10% carbohydrates - not 40%.

Both diets used in this study were high-glucose diets, and neither induced the metabolic state of ketosis, which is the hallmark of real low-carb therapy.

Even worse, the authors did not measure blood ketones or blood sugar, so there's no evidence that the mice were in any kind of glucose-restricted or fat-burning state.

Yet the authors went on to claim that "glucose restriction" increased the risk of lung metastasis - when in reality, they never tested glucose restriction at all.

This is not just a minor technical oversight. It is a critical mischaracterization that risks misleading doctors, researchers, and especially patients - many of whom are exploring safe, non-toxic dietary strategies like the ketogenic diet to support cancer treatment.

❗ We Pointed This Out to Cell - They Refused to Publish Our Rebuttal

Recognizing the public health risks of this misinformation, we submitted a detailed rebuttal to Cell.

We carefully explained:

• The diet used in the study was not low-carb
• The authors failed to measure glucose or ketones
• No evidence of actual glucose restriction was presented
• Their conclusions about metastasis and diet were therefore invalid

We respectfully requested that Cell publish our rebuttal as a commentary or technical note - not to attack, but to promote scientific clarity and protect public understanding.

The response from Cell's Editor-in-Chief, Dr. John W. Pham?

"We appreciate the points that you raise, but we do not have a format for the kind of commentary that you propose."

In other words: the journal that published this potentially harmful claim refused to publish a correction or allow informed dissent.

This is even more concerning than the original article. In a healthy scientific system, there must be room for respectful debate - especially when public health is at stake.

🔍 What the Study Claimed - and Why It's Misleading

The Cell study claimed that "glucose restriction" increased the release of a molecule called TRAIL from tumor cells, which may influence immune cells in the lungs and increase metastasis.

But again:

• No true glucose restriction occurred
• No metabolic data (like ketones, insulin, or glucose levels) was reported
• Food intake and body weight were not tracked
• Both diets were high in carbohydrates - neither represents a real-world low-carb or ketogenic intervention

It's entirely possible that the mice were metabolically stressed, overfed, or had immune changes unrelated to carbohydrate levels. But without proper metabolic tracking, we cannot know.

Despite this, the paper drew public conclusions about low-carb diets that may deter patients from using safe, science-based dietary tools to support their health.

✅ What Real Low-Carb or Ketogenic Therapy Looks Like

True ketogenic metabolic therapy for cancer has been studied extensively and includes:

• Less than 10% carbohydrate intake
• Moderate protein to avoid excess glucose production
• High healthy fat intake (70-80% of calories)
• Tracking of glucose, ketones, insulin, and other biomarkers
• Optional fasting to deepen metabolic shifts
• Measurable therapeutic ketosis (via ketone levels or glucose-ketone index)

Over 100 studies, both in animals and humans, suggest that ketogenic diets may:

• Slow tumor growth
• Reduce inflammation
• Improve immune function
• Lower insulin and glucose - two key fuels for cancer cells
• In some cases, delay or reduce metastasis

🧭 Final Word: When Science Goes Wrong, We Must Speak Up

This case reveals two serious problems:

1. A world-renowned journal published a paper that misrepresents what a low-carb diet is, and draws misleading conclusions that may harm patients.
2. When independent researchers respectfully pointed out the error, the journal refused to publish their rebuttal.

That's not science. That's narrative control.

As scientists and physicians, we must speak up when flawed research risks misleading the public - especially when the media and patients trust high-profile journals to guide life-and-death decisions.

That's why we're sharing our rebuttal here, through the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service - a platform that honors open scientific dialogue and puts human optimal wellness first.

References

1. Wu CY, Huang CX, Lao XM, Zhou ZW, Jian JH, Li ZX, Wu YY, Liu ZY, Chen L, Liu L, Zheng L, Wei Y, Kuang DM. Glucose restriction shapes pre-metastatic innate immune landscapes in the lung through exosomal TRAIL. Cell. 2025 Oct 2;188(20):5701-5716.e19. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2025.06.027. Epub 2025 Jul 15. PMID: 40669460.

2. Seyfried TN. Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: On the Origin, Management, and Prevention of Cancer. Wiley; 2012. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781118310311

3. Duraj T, Kalamian M, Zuccoli G, Maroon JC, D'Agostino DP, Scheck AC, Poff A, Winter SF, Hu J, Klement RJ, Hickson A, Lee DC, Cooper I, Kofler B, Schwartz KA, Phillips MCL, Champ CE, Zupec-Kania B, Tan-Shalaby J, Serfaty FM, Omene E, Arismendi-Morillo G, Kiebish M, Cheng R, El-Sakka AM, Pflueger A, Mathews EH, Worden D, Shi H, Cincione RI, Spinosa JP, Slocum AK, Iyikesici MS, Yanagisawa A, Pilkington GJ, Chaffee A, Abdel-Hadi W, Elsamman AK, Klein P, Hagihara K, Clemens Z, Yu GW, Evangeliou AE, Nathan JK, Smith K, Fortin D, Dietrich J, Mukherjee P, Seyfried TN. Clinical research framework proposal for ketogenic metabolic therapy in glioblastoma. BMC Med. 2024 Dec 5;22(1):578. doi: 10.1186/s12916-024-03775-4. PMID: 39639257; PMCID: PMC11622503.

4. Klement RJ. Anti-tumor effects of ketogenic diets and their synergism with other treatments in mice: Bayesian evidence synthesis of 1755 individual mouse survival data. Biomed J. 2024 Feb;47(1):100609. doi: 10.1016/j.bj.2023.100609. Epub 2023 May 26. PMID: 37245566; PMCID: PMC10900256.

5. Mukherjee P, Augur ZM, Li M, Hill C, Greenwood B, Domin MA, Kondakci G, Narain NR, Kiebish MA, Bronson RT, Arismendi-Morillo G, Chinopoulos C, Seyfried TN. Therapeutic benefit of combining calorie-restricted ketogenic diet and glutamine targeting in late-stage experimental glioblastoma. Commun Biol. 2019 May 29;2:200. doi: 10.1038/s42003-019-0455-x. PMID: 31149644; PMCID: PMC6541653.

👥 About the Authors

Richard Z. Cheng, M.D., Ph.D.
Editor-in-Chief of OMNS. A U.S.-trained, board-certified physician specializing in orthomolecular and integrative cancer therapies. Based in the USA and China.

Lance Long
Science writer and editor focused on metabolic health and evidence-based nutrition.

Thomas Seyfried, Ph.D.
Professor of Biology at Boston College. Author of Cancer as a Metabolic Disease and a leading voice in the mitochondrial theory of cancer.

Tomas Duraj, M.D.
Researcher and clinician developing frameworks for ketogenic cancer therapy.

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