Interesting article about brain cancer and ketogenic diet.

]Does the Existing Standard of Care Supply Energy Sources to Brain Tumor Cells?


You can't really avoid the glutamine but the glucose is something that can be controlled (with limits).

I sometimes take L-glutamine for sugar cravings. Is this bad?

You can't really avoid glutamine. It's an amino acid and found in almost everything you eat. I suppose it would be unwise to take it if you have brain cancer.

makes me nervous as my sister died of a brain tumor.

CANCER AS A METABOLIC DISEASE Seyfried explains his theory in greater detail here.
and also in this paper
Targeting energy metabolism in brain cancer through calorie restriction and the ketogenic diet

Thank you for those links, Hutchinson. I needed to know the information contained in the articles.

I'm very pleased to hear this, since there was a long ago study. Two young people tried it for brain cancer when all else failed. One, it didn't seem to help. The other, I found out recently, is supposedly still alive. Some 20 years later.

This is interesting. When my husband had cancer his oncologist said sugar had nothing to do with feeding the cancer and the dieticians told him to eat anything he could get down, even if it was cake and ice cream. He lived for several months on nothing but Ensure, and that's full of sugar. Fortunately he survived the cancer and the horrible treatments he went through to cure it.

I'm so glad to hear that, Anni!

I had a cancer scare; and my googling on what doctors said to each other convinced me that chemo would be a very bad bet. I was going to try the ketogenic method. Fortunately, it didn't come to that; but I was serious.

thanks for the links.

From personal observations of 2 cancer patients - both would eat only sugary foods. My theory is the cancer thrives on sugar and was literally demanding to be fed.

When my research turned up that cancer thrived on glucose, I put my ex on a high protein lc diet with no sugar. He's still living nearly 10 years after being diagnosed, despite being given only a 10% chance of surviving 2 years.

The other young man had parents who could not deny their son any pleasure, no matter how small, so his diet consisted of favorite junk food and sweets. Unfortunately his cancer ran rampant and he died within 7 mos of being diagnosed.

Sure do wish they would devote more research to the effects of starving cancer of nutrients while still supporting the body with a sugar free / LC diet.

There was a trial (or is one...not sure if it is done) in Germany. I vaguely remember some preliminary info being reported in one of the journals and it looked good.

The problem they were having though is the government would only let them test on people that were so far gone they were mostly toast anyway.

Hopefully someone who actually remembers the journal report will stumble by.