New Study Links Low-Methionine Diet to Improved Brain Tumor Treatment Outcomes - Video

A simple dietary change dramatically slowed the growth of one of the deadliest brain cancers in mice, offering researchers a promising new direction for future treatments.

Scientists from Baylor College of Medicine and collaborating institutions found that restricting methionine, an essential amino acid obtained through food, disrupted the survival of glioma cells, slowed tumor growth, and extended survival in animal models. The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Gliomas are aggressive brain tumors that rely heavily on methionine to fuel rapid growth and regulate gene activity. To test whether reducing this nutrient could affect cancer progression, researchers fed one group of mice a normal diet and another a methionine-restricted diet.

The results were striking. Mice receiving less methionine developed slower-growing tumors and survived significantly longer. While examining the tumors under a microscope, researchers made an unexpected discovery: the DNA inside cancer cells appeared partially unraveled instead of tightly packed.

Further investigation revealed that methionine restriction disrupted chromatin—the structure that organizes DNA inside cells. When chromatin becomes unstable, gene activity changes, triggering stress that ultimately causes cancer cell death.

The team also studied a protein called Hp1bp3, which helps maintain chromatin stability. Mice lacking this protein developed faster-growing tumors and had shorter survival. Surprisingly, when Hp1bp3 deficiency was combined with a methionine-restricted diet, tumor growth slowed even further and survival improved beyond expectations.

Although the findings are encouraging, the research was conducted only in mice. Scientists caution that it is too early to recommend methionine-restricted diets for people with brain cancer. More studies are needed to determine whether this dietary approach is safe and effective in humans and whether it could complement existing glioma treatments.

REFERENCE: Lozzi, B., et al. (2026). Hp1bp3 loss links chromatin reorganization to metabolic vulnerability in glioma. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2601061123. https://pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2601061123