Nutritional Protocol for Brain Cancer

While doctors are unsure of the reasons behind the development of brain tumors, that is hardly a consoling thought for someone so affected. When battling brain cancer, in addition to conventional modes of treatment, you can employ dietary strategies to aid in the fight, bringing all of your proverbial guns to bear against this potentially deadly enemy. Recent studies have shown that a low-carb, high-fat diet might help to stifle the development of brain cancer.

Brain Cancer

• Brain cancer is one of the most deadly cancers, with an average 5-year survival rate of only 33.3 percent, according to statistics calculated by emedtv.com. Brain cancer comes in two separate but equally troublesome flavors: primary brain cancer, which begins in the brain, and metastatic brain cancer, which spreads to the brain from another area of the body. Symptoms include morning headaches, nausea and impaired motor control or memory.

Brain Cancer and Diet

• What you eat plays a substantial role in determining your overall prognosis with brain cancer. Certain foods are proven to have cancer-fighting properties, such as cruciferous vegetables and many other types of fruits and vegetables. While incorporating these foods into your diet is not a foolproof insurance policy against brain cancer, it can certainly help to tilt the scales in your direction.

Low Carb Diet

• Research conducted at the University of Würzburg in Germany by Dr. Melanie Schmidt and colleagues suggest that a high-fat, low-carb approach might be one key toward stopping the spread of brain cancer. Dr. Schmidt was only allowed to enroll patients who had completely run out of other options for fighting cancer. Out of these no-hope cases, a number of individuals who stuck to the diet for 3 months had their tumors shrink or stop growing entirely.

Low-Carb Diet Recommendations

• In the aforementioned study, the patients were on a very low carb ketogenic diet. They aimed to keep their diets as carb-free as possible, shooting for no more than 30 g of carb intake per day. Of course, this is not license to eat copious amounts of saturated fat. Keep your diet limited to lean cuts of meat, plenty of unsaturated fats like olive and fish oil, and as many fibrous green veggies as you can stand.

Further Evidence

• Another study performed at Boston College and published in the February 2007 edition of Nutrition and Metabolism reached a similar conclusion. There, following a low-carb, high-fat diet significantly slowed the growth of brain tumors in laboratory mice. In addition to slowing tumor growth, survival rates and overall health were increased in the low-carb group as opposed to the control group, which was fed a higher carb diet.