Health Check Ep 6: Can soursop or ketogenic diets be used to treat and control cancer?

11:20 mins

Synopsis: Health Check is a fortnightly podcast series by The Straits Times on Tuesdays, where we guide you to healthier living, debunk the misconceptions, or examine the impact of national health policies with expert guests.

Dr Wong Seng Weng - medical director and consultant medical oncologist at The Cancer Centre - answers the following questions about alternative therapies to treat cancer.

Can soursop be used to treat cancer? Also, is there potential harm from taking large quantities of soursop or soursop extracts that are made from the fruit, leaves, roots or bark?

Dr Wong explains how some of the substances found in soursop can cross over from the bloodstream into the brain and cause nerve damage.

How about using a ketogenic or keto diet to control cancer?

A keto diet is essentially a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet. This is certainly not the normal diet here, as a typical diet in the Asian community consists of nearly 60 per cent carbohydrates.

Dr Wong advises us if this keto diet is a viable alternative therapy to treat cancer.

Produced by: Joyce Teo and Ernest Luis

Edited by: Adam Azlee

Subscribe, like and rate Health Check on:

Spotify: http://str.sg/oeGY

iTunes: http://str.sg/oeXP

Google podcasts: http://str.sg/oeLN

Feedback to: podcast@sph.com.sg