Book Review: How to Starve Cancer, by Jane McLelland

Published: 25th September 2018

ISBN: 9780951951736

Number Of Pages: 404

Kindle edition (US$9,90).

Website: www.howtostarvecancer.com

(Revised on 24-03-2025 to include relevant links)

Based on her own battle with cancer, McLelland shares how she combined conventional therapies with off-label drugs, supplements, and lifestyle changes to inhibit cancer’s metabolic pathways.

Cancer Progress and Treatment Timeline

1994: Diagnosed with Cervical Cancer Stage 1b, at age 30. Treatments: Surgery, Radiation therapy,  and Chemotherapy.

Gradually starts making changes to her diet (cutting out sugar, wheat and dairy, supplementing vitamins C and E, and glucosamine sulfate to manage the pain in her knee from a skiing accident.)

1998: A cough appears.

1999: Cancer has metastasized to the lungs ("a tumor the size of a golf ball"); Surgery. 

She takes ginger, curcumin, and omega-3 to reduce inflammation, pre-surgery. 

Other supplements she's taking at this point in time are green tea, ellagic acid, resveratrol, milk thistle, pycnogenol, B12, folate, glucosamine sulfate, and CLA.

2000: Chemotherapy: Gemcitabine, Cisplatin, and 5FU (until the summer of 2000, the last three months were on a lower-than-regular dose). After the first chemo round, the SCC marker dropped from almost 600 to 130, which is in the normal range (up to 150).

Intravenous vitamin C. Started taking Berberine before Chemotherapy.

2003: Dr. Kenyon's live blood analysis reveals rouleaux formations. SCC markers are in the normal range.

Intravenous vitamin C.

Starts taking dipyridamole, aspirin, and magnesium.

Cocktail of repurposed drugs: metformin, statins, dipyridamole, aspirin, and etodolac.

Stopped Etodolac after 3 months, worried about her stomach lining.

Stopped taking the statin after 5 months.

2004: Bump in SCC markers (>200). Resumed her drug cocktail. More IV-C. Started retaking Berberine, which she had stopped taking in 2002.

Two months later, SCC markers dropped again. A CT scan was done, but no sign of disease.

2007: She took Cimetidine for 3 months for its immune-stimulating effect. (She was worried about an outbreak of avian flu.)

McLelland claims to have therapy-related leukemia, a cancer of the blood, but she does not present an official diagnosis from her oncologist. Jane suspects this to be the case based on a blood test from Dr. Kenyon, a man barred from practising medicine in the UK, showing rouleaux formations in the blood.

This part is crucial because she writes that her multidrug cocktail had stopped the progression of leukemia, "known to be impossible to cure....had I stumbled on a magic metabolic combination, a way to starve and conquer my cancer?". In a recent podcast with The Moss Report, she was asked if she had blood cancer, but she did not provide a clear answer. Why? Is it possible that her cancer was cured after undergoing chemotherapy in 2000? Based on her account from 2000 to 2007, it certainly seems plausible. 

The book contains much information on drugs now being repurposed for cancer treatment. Note that at the time Jane started taking these medications, very few people were using those drugs in cancer treatment. She credits her recovery from stage 4 cancer to her diet, exercise, off-label medicines, and supplements. Undeniably, standard therapy (surgery, RT, and chemo) played an essential role in her recovery as well. 

It's an intriguing story of a long, albeit relatively uneventful, fight against cancer. 

Stem Cell ❝Metro Map❞

McLelland created a map that illustrates multiple nutrient pathways in cancer cells. This map represents the cancer stem cell, and its goal is to guide the reader to drugs and supplements that block these pathways.

The map is actually an isosceles triangle. The base of this triangle represents the fatty acid pathway, the left leg of the triangle is the glutamine pathway, and the right leg represents the glucose pathway. In the center of the triangle is acetyl-CoA, a molecule that participates in many biochemical reactions in protein, carbohydrate, and lipid metabolism.

It is the most crucial chapter of the book and requires more explanation.

Intravenous Vitamin C (IVC)

In an interview with Dr. Jeffrey Bland in 1982, Linus Pauling (1901 – 1994) talks about the benefit of vitamin C for heart disease and cancer but never mentions IVC. In that interview, Linus Pauling says he takes 12 grams of ascorbic acid crystals a day, a dosage he thinks is optimal. However, he says that any amount below that dose, even 500mg daily, would benefit general health. At a seminar in 1993, a year before his death at age 93, he was taking 18 grams of ascorbic acid daily {Ref}. Confirmation of Pauling's preference for oral vitamin C can be found in the article "The orthomolecular treatment of cancer II. Clinical trial of high-dose ascorbic acid supplements in advanced human cancer" by Ewan Cameron (1922-1991) and Allan Campbell. Yet Jane McLelland claims Vitamin C should be administered intravenously "in the way Linus Pauling suggested." 

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A significant part of the book is McLelland’s personal story. Cancer is frightening, but in her book, Jane often dramatizes her situation and is much too harsh in her judgment of oncologists and the medical system. It's quite unfair. From reading her account, there's no doubt that Jane's medical care was beneficial to her recovery. For readers with advanced cancer, this book may be disheartening and does not provide a clear roadmap to follow.