Dr Seyfried shared that while healthy cells are metabolic ‘hybrids’ capable of burning different types of fuel, cancer cells are remarkably rigid. To grow at such aggressive speeds, Dr Seyfried said they rely almost exclusively on two sources:

The core of Dr Seyfried’s theory rests on the health of mitochondria — the power plants of our cells. He argued that cancer cells possess ‘bad’ or dysfunctional mitochondria that cannot effectively process fats for energy. He said that by shifting the body into nutritional ketosis — a state achieved through water-only fasting or ultra-low-carbohydrate diets — healthy cells begin to burn ketone bodies for fuel. Because cancer cells cannot make this metabolic switch, they are left ‘starving’ in a fuel-restricted environment, he said.Dr Seyfried explained: “A solution to the cancer problem without toxicity is to simultaneously restrict the two fuels: glucose, which is already in our bloodstream from the food we eat, and the amino acid glutamine. If we stopped eating, adopted a low-carbohydrate diet, and did water-only fasting, we would enter nutritional ketosis. The tumour cells have bad mitochondria. They’re dependent on glucose and glutamine. We can replace glucose and glutamine with ketone bodies. So, we selectively marginalise these tumour cells slowly over time. They slowly start to die. The blood vessels disappear, and the body comes in and dissolves them.”Perhaps the most provocative part of Dr Seyfried’s message is the call for a ‘solution to the cancer problem without toxicity’. Traditional treatments like chemotherapy and radiation target rapidly dividing cells, but often cause significant damage to the rest of the body.