Fig. 1. Caloric cycling provides protection against primary tumor growth.

a Percent reduction in caloric intake during the ‘ON’ period of the fasting mimicking diet (FMD) and very low-calorie cycle (LCC) regimens (Days 0–4) compared to ad libitum (AL) feeding on standard laboratory chow (SD). b Experimental layout. 7 days after injection with 4T1 breast cancer cells (10⁶ cells/mL) 16-week-old BALB/cJ females were subjected to caloric cycling (FMD or LCC) or maintained on AL. A second round of caloric cycling was performed on days 21–25, after which tissues were collected at day 28. c Growth rate of primary tumors. d Tumor area on day 28. e Percent change in body weight trajectories. f Average body weight during the course of the study. g Percent change in food consumption from baseline. h Average caloric intake. Most of the data are represented as scatter plots with mean values ± SEM. One-way ANOVA with Tukey post hoc analysis was used to determine statistical significance with **p < 0.01, ****p < 0.0001 compared to AL. c–h AL, n = 20; FMD, n = 19; LCC, n = 19 mice per treatment group. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.