Nutrition for brain cancer is not that different from optimum nutrition for everyone. While supporting yourself or a loved one through proper nutrition, the rest of your family and friends will benefit as well. The old adage “you are what you eat” is actually true. The food you digest breaks down and becomes breaks down and turns into your cells, your blood, your organs, and even your thoughts. Foods also directly control gene expression, positively and negatively. With this perspective in mind, you can shift your experience with food from one solely about pleasure, ease, convenience, and economy and turn to a relationship based on food for health and nourishment, which can also be deeply pleasurable and satisfying.

General Recommendations

One of the most important and first shifts you should make as you learn the basics of a health-supportive diet is to eat whole foods. While that may seem obvious, take a closer look at what you eat and you’re likely to find that much of what you consume is so processed, doctored, and otherwise transformed that it is several steps removed from real food. Ask yourself a few simple questions to gauge the healthfulness of your diet:

1. Was it around when your grandmother was growing up? If not, it probably isn’t “food” and is negatively impacting your health, energy, and immune system.
2. Are there ingredients you can’t pronounce, haven’t heard of, or couldn’t go into the store and buy yourself? If so, leave it. Chemicals, preservatives, transfats, and artificial colors have no place in anyone’s diet, much less in that of a body fighting for its life.
3. While a mostly plant-based diet is recommended, you can still include smaller amounts of lean organic, grass-fed/wild/pasture-raised meat and animal products.

Cooking for Cancer

Increasing the nutritional value of foods you consume and eating enough calories to sustain energy and promote healing are both very important goals. Balancing the two can be a challenge as you learn to create “comfort” foods that are also good for you. Pick up a copy of One Bite at a Time by Rebecca Katz, a great primary resource for anyone cooking for a cancer fighter or survivor. There are four key things to keep in mind as you make this transition to your cooking:

1. Eat organic food as much as possible

   • The most important foods to buy organic are meat and dairy products, peanuts, peaches, apples, peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, pears, grapes, spinach, lettuce, and potatoes.

2. Eat more Omega-3 fats and significantly less Omega-6s. An improper ratio of Omega 6:Omega 3 fats in the diet plays a significant role in inflammation-based diseases, including cancer. A low-fat diet is NOT recommended for brain cancer patients but the TYPE of fat you consume is very important. Your goal is to increase your omega-3 intake and decrease your omega-6 intake, aiming for a ratio of 1:1 (most people eat 20-30 times more omega-6s than 3’s).

   • Omega-6 fats stimulate tumor growth, feed inflammation, promote seizures, and suppress immune function. The unhealthiest Omega-6 fats are saturated, hydrogenated, and partially hydrogenated oils. The saturated fat found in commercially raised meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy is very high in Omega-6 fats. When animals are allowed to consume their natural grass-based diet, their meat, milk, and eggs are instead rich in Omega-3 fats, giving grass-fed beef an Omega 6: Omega 3 ratio similar to fish.

   • Omega-9 fats (found in Olive Oil) are neutral, having no known effect on inflammation.

   • Omega-3 fats found in fish and flax slow tumor growth, reduce pain and inflammation, and boost the immune system. Eat cold-water fish 1-3 times per week but to avoid heavy metal contamination choose smaller varieties like sardines and herring over larger fish like tuna and swordfish. Wild Pacific Salmon is another great choice. To increase the amount of flax in your diet, use flax oil in smoothies, salad dressings, oatmeal, or hummus and sprinkle ground flax seeds in salads, soups, or oatmeal. Flax oil must be kept refrigerated and cannot be heated or cooked with. Making a “better butter” spread by mixing 1 part grass-fed organic (raw is even better) butter with 1 part flax seed oil is a great way to get more flax into your daily diet.

3. Restrict sugar and refined carbohydrate intake.

   • Brain tumors rely on glucose as their primary fuel so reducing dietary sugar and simple carbohydrates is key. Sugar also compromises the immune system and promotes the inflammatory process (which in turn promotes tumor growth). It is important to note that one side-effect of Decadron is elevating your blood sugar levels.

   • Limit fruits to 2-3 servings a day, choose lower sugar options like apples, pears, and berries rather than high-sugar varieties like oranges, bananas, melons, juice, and dried fruits, and emphasize blueberries, a true cancer-fighting superfood.

   • Refined carbohydrates (anything white including cookies, crackers, cake, white rice, pasta, flour, or bread) are metabolized in the body as though they are sugars. Instead, choose whole grain products and increase your consumption of actual whole grains (oatmeal, brown rice, quinoa, buckwheat, rye, spelt, millet, barley). Many products marketed as whole grain actually aren’t. Make sure there is a minimum of 2 grams fiber per 100 calorie serving or you’re looking at a whole grain imposter.

   • Always eat carbohydrates together with protein and/or healthy fat.

   • Limit sweet treats to once per week and enjoy after a meal, never on an empty stomach. 70% dark chocolate is a great choice, look for Chocolove, Lindt, Newman’s, or Sunspire brands as these do not contain copper (which supports angiogenesis).

   • Try agave, a lower glycemic natural sweetner (which should still be used in moderation) or stevia, a natural herbal sweetener made from the leaf of a South American plant. It contains no glucose, will not imbalance your blood sugar levels, and is now widely available under the name Truvia.

4. Emphasize the following cancer-fighting foods:

   • Berries: all are good, emphasize blueberries, raspberries, cherries, blackberries, and ollalieberries.

   • Cruciferous Vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and kale.

   • Garlic, Onion, and Leeks

   • Flax

   • Carotene-rich foods: carrots, yams, sweet potatoes, squash, tomatoes, pumpkin, persimmon, and apricots.

   • Citrus Peel: Orange and tangerine peel

   • Mushrooms: Shitake, maitake, turkey tail, crimini, portobello, reishe

   • Green Tea

   • Fresh Vegetable Juice

   • Super Green Foods: Spirulina, Wheat Grass, Blue-Green Algae, and Chlorella

   • Soy Foods: Tempeh, miso, tofu, edamame, and some soy milk. Avoid highly processed soy “fake meats” and isolated soy powers

   • Legumes: dried peas, lentils, and beans including pintos, adukis, black beans, kidney and mung beans.

Special thanks to Dr. Jeanne Wallace, PhD, CNC for teaching us everything we know about brain cancer nutrition and for her work’s inspiration of the above materials.