Researchers have found in an early study that fasting might be helping in making chemotherapy work better as it makes infection weaker.

The research has been conducted in mice and it is not known if it will have similar results in humans. It is also known if the approach will be safer for humans. According to researchers, the study offers a new approach to develop treatment for cancer.

Senior author Valter Longo, professor of gerontology and biological sciences at the University of Southern California (USC) said, in the experiment, "the combination of fasting cycles plus chemotherapy was either more or much more effective than chemo alone."

Mr. Longo and his associated had published a study earlier in 2008 that showed how fasting protected normal cells against chemotherapy. The earlier study was focused on a particular type of cancer and a single chemo drug.

The newer study shows that fasting makes cancer cells more vulnerable, and spanned several different types of cancer in mice. They studied breast cancer, melanoma, glioma and human neuroblastoma in the study. The results showed that fasting combined with chemotherapy improved survival and slowed the growth of the infection.

The study has been published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.