Scientists and clinicians are calling on the University of Melbourne to cancel a seminar by a controversial nutritionist who has claimed a high-fat diet "starves" cancer.

Christine Cronau, a Brisbane-based nutritionist and author of Bring Back The Fat, will present at the prestigious institution on Sunday as part of a national speaking tour about the benefits of low-carbohydrate, high-fat ketogenic diets.

But Friends of Science in Medicine, which represents 1200 scientists and clinicians, has written to the university demanding that it suspend the event.

Christine Cronau in a video posted to her website.

The group's president Professor Ken Harvey, who is a Monash University academic, said Ms Cronau had unsuccessfully tried to "present her dangerous nonsense" at seminars at Murdoch, Adelaide, South Australia and Edith Cowan universities in 2017.