Glioblastoma is the deadliest type of brain cancer. Most people diagnosed with it survive only one or two years.
This aggressive cancer starts when normal brain cells begin growing out of control and spreading into nearby tissue.
These cancer cells behave very differently from healthy ones, especially when it comes to how they use nutrients like sugar.
In a new study published in the journal Nature, researchers from the University of Michigan explored how glioblastoma tumors use sugar, and how changing a person’s diet might slow the cancer’s growth.
Led by teams from the Rogel Cancer Center, Department of Neurosurgery, and Biomedical Engineering, the researchers found that brain tumors process sugar differently than healthy brain cells. They discovered that blocking some of the nutrients the tumors need—especially certain amino acids—helped slow down tumor growth in mice.
Dr. Daniel Wahl, one of the lead researchers, explained that current treatments like surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy may work for a time, but the tumors almost always return and become harder to treat. He and his colleagues wanted to find new treatment options by studying how these tumors “eat.”
They injected small amounts of labeled sugar into both mice and human patients to track how sugar is used by the brain. They found something surprising. While both healthy and cancerous brain cells consume a lot of sugar, they use it in different ways.
Healthy brain cells use sugar to produce energy and chemicals needed for thinking and functioning. In contrast, glioblastoma cells use sugar to build DNA and RNA, which helps the tumor grow and spread.
In short, the sugar fuels brain health in normal cells—but in tumor cells, it fuels cancer growth.
The research team also found that glioblastoma tumors don’t make their own amino acids like healthy brain cells do. Instead, they “steal” amino acids from the blood, especially two important ones: serine and glycine.
To test whether removing these nutrients would affect the tumors, the researchers put mice on special diets that lacked serine and glycine. The results were promising. Mice that were fed these restricted diets had better responses to radiation and chemotherapy, and their tumors were smaller than those in mice eating regular diets.
This approach—cutting off the nutrients that tumors rely on—could be a new way to help treat this deadly disease. The researchers even developed mathematical models to better understand how glucose is used in different ways by tumors and healthy brain tissue. This can help them find new drug targets in the future.
Dr. Costas Lyssiotis, another senior researcher, compared the tumor’s metabolism to a busy freeway, while the normal brain is like a quiet country road. Targeting the high-traffic “freeways” in tumor cells could stop the cancer without harming the rest of the brain.
The University of Michigan team is now working to launch clinical trials to test whether these specialized diets might help real patients with glioblastoma. Dr. Wahl says it’s been a team effort involving many departments and researchers across the university.
This exciting discovery opens the door to using diet as a tool in the fight against one of the most aggressive brain cancers, giving patients new hope for better outcomes.
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The study is published in Nature.
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