This is why some chemo will result in for example hairloss; Because the cancer you're being treated for, has the same growth rate as the cells in your hair - and thus the chemo will also kill those cells.
It can't cure tho, because liver and kidney will create most important resources for body to be able to work.
This interview with Rhonda Patrick is a good introduction to his research, but it’s quite extensive and the papers are worth checking out if you’re interested in this topic.
If you are 350 pounds, can't you just not eat until you are 150 and be fine? (I am not suggesting that this is true or that anyone should try it; I don't know and I am asking the question.)
However, metabolism has non-energy needs which are supplied through food: vitamins, minerals, protein, and some fats that cannot be synthesized iirc. Though these needs are greatly reduced when fasting, they do not go to zero.
Google “angus barbieri” for the most famous, though not unique, example for medically documented long term fasting.
The best way of doing this, based on years of science, would be, well, to eat nothing for 24+ hours at a time, but make sure you stay hydrated; as in, actually fast. The second best would be to seriously curb your carbs, under 30g a day; also tied for second best is to eat just once a day, none of this unscientific three square meals hogwash.
Three of these together could halt the progress of some cancers, and before the shitstorm that was 2020, scientists were publishing papers involving animal models on this.
Steve Jobs did none of these, and was, sadly, off in la-la land when someone with his money and connections could have had access to next generation scientifically-based treatments. Fruitarianism is, frankly, dangerous.
So water and coffee or tea (without milk, of course) would be fine. You're trying to avoid an insulin response and firing up the entire machinery of digestion.
I think it's non-controversial to say that this starves the cancer cells.
Perhaps less certainly we can also say that digestion demands a lot of resources and is an interrupt for a lot of other processes. When your body has nothing to do for 24-36 hours eventually lower priority tasks get attended to ... like garbage collection.
Jobs had GEP-NET cancer, which have 5 years OSR of 70% at stage IV. It's a slow growing cancer, very survivable and even surgically curable in early stage.
The fast, almost always fatal is the pancreatic adenocarcinoma.
Also, the mortality rate of a cancer is a function of many variables (stage at the time of diagnosis, tumor differentiation, tumor location, etc.). A number like 95% doesn't make any sense without a lot of context.
But at least with the poor countries I'm not sure if it's because people die of other reasons before they even could get cancer.
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And then you can try to find other correlations.