Chef claims radical diet helped him beat brain cancer

ketogenic foods
John Lawson says a high-fat, low-carb diet was key to his recovery. Photo credit: Getty

A UK chef says a high-fat, low-carb diet helped him beat brain cancer after being diagnosed three years ago. 

The Telegraph reports 35-year-old John Lawson was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2015. The chef, a former protégé of Gordon Ramsey, was running his own Melbourne restaraunt at the time, reportedly serving over 200 diners a night. 

But it was eating food that he turned to when the tumour took him out of the professional kitchen. 

Lawson told the Daily Mail this week that after undergoing dramatic surgery, a radical overhaul of his diet was the key in his recovery. He now follows the 'ketogenic' diet - which includes almost no carbohydrates coupled with a high level of fat. 

"It's been a massive part of my recovery," said Lawson, now running a restaurant in his home town of Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, where "all food is cooked with health in mind".

This means a lot of meat, butter, fish, and leafy greens, and means no starchy vegetables or even fruits, apart from a few blueberries. 

He says the aim is to starve the tumour of its main food source - sugar. 

"Tumour cells are programmed to grow fast and they need lots of energy to do this - preferably glucose," says Kevin O'Neill, a consultant neurosurgeon and head of the brain tumour clinical service in London.

Dr O'Neill is studying brain tumour patients on the diet. 

"Changing the body's energy source to ketones seems to produce changes that calm the brain down." 

According to research, the ketogenic diet can affect brain chemistry, including preventing seizures in children with epilepsy for whom drugs have failed

As well as the diet, Lawson now works out, practises yoga and meditates. It is, he says, a far cry from before his seizure, when 16-hour days were typical. 

Three years on, he no longer needs anti-seizure medication, and the cancer hasn't recurred.

"At my last six-monthly check-up, they said, 'Whatever you're doing, keep doing it'," he said.

Newshub.