Supplements became a fairly big part of what we explored after Stu was diagnosed, but like so many things with glioblastoma, we didn't start out knowing anything about them. We learnt as we went, usually because one person or one piece of research led us somewhere else and suddenly there was another enormous subject I apparently needed to understand.

By the time we had built a wider team around Stu, we were working with Patrice Surley, Dr Etienne Callebout and Dr Michael Castro, alongside Care Oncology and Stu's NHS oncology team. Supplements became one part of a much bigger picture that also included his conventional treatment, repurposed medications, diet and the molecular information we were gathering about his tumour.

Looking back now, I would describe what we were doing slightly differently from the way I did when I first wrote this page in 2021. We were trying to understand whether there were biological pathways involved in Stu's particular cancer that could potentially be influenced alongside his standard treatment. That is very different from saying that taking supplements can stop glioblastoma growing or make somebody live longer, because for most supplements the clinical evidence simply isn't strong enough to say that.

WHY DID WE LOOK AT SUPPLEMENTS?

A lot of our thinking at the time was influenced by Jane McLelland's *How to Starve Cancer* and the Metro Map, which looks at different metabolic pathways cancer cells can use and ways those pathways might potentially be targeted.

Cancer metabolism is a genuine and fascinating area of research. Glioblastoma cells can alter the way they use glucose, glutamine, lipids and other nutrients, and researchers are investigating whether those metabolic differences might eventually provide useful therapeutic targets. What is much less certain is how successfully we can exploit those vulnerabilities in actual people with glioblastoma. A biological pathway that looks extremely compelling on paper or in a laboratory does not automatically translate into an effective treatment.

That distinction probably sounds obvious written down now. It didn't always feel obvious when we were in the middle of it, because when somebody you love has an aggressive cancer and the conventional options are limited, a paper explaining why a particular compound affects a particular pathway can feel enormously significant.

OUR EXPERIENCE

We started looking at supplements fairly early after Stu's diagnosis, although his first oncology team weren't particularly supportive of the metabolic approach we were exploring. Once we began working with Patrice Surley and later Dr Callebout and Dr Castro, we had people who could help us think through what we were researching rather than me trying to construct the whole thing from Google and a spreadsheet.

Eventually I did build what was essentially Stu's own version of the Metro Map. I pulled together information from his molecular reports, what we were learning from the different people we were working with, the repurposed medications he was taking and the research I was reading about different supplements and pathways.

I am deliberately not publishing that protocol here. Stu's tumour biology, treatment, medication and circumstances were his, and I don't want somebody finding this page after a terrifying diagnosis and assuming that because we gave Stu something, they should take it too.

We didn't do this alone and I still wouldn't recommend that anyone does. We tried to make sure the people advising us knew what Stu was taking because supplements can interact with medication and cancer treatment, and the fact that you can buy something without a prescription absolutely does not mean it is harmless.

THE METABOLIC THEORY

When I originally wrote this page, I said that cancer cells required three main fuel sources, glucose, glutamine and lipids, and that our aim was essentially to starve the cancer stem cells and then use treatment to kill them. I wouldn't describe it that definitively now.

Altered metabolism is absolutely part of glioblastoma biology. Researchers continue to investigate glucose metabolism, glutamine use, lipid metabolism, mitochondrial function and other metabolic processes because GBM cells can adapt the way they generate energy and the materials they need to survive. The difficulty is that this adaptability is part of the problem. Cancer metabolism is enormously complicated and GBM cells can potentially switch between pathways rather than relying on one neat fuel source that can simply be removed.

The research is interesting and some of it may ultimately lead to better treatments, but clinical evidence for metabolic interventions in glioblastoma remains limited. That's a rather different proposition from believing that if you can identify and block enough pathways yourself, you can starve a tumour.

AND WHAT ABOUT WARBURG?

I also need to correct something from the original version of this page because this website is supposed to become more useful with hindsight, not preserve everything I wrote in 2021 simply because I wrote it.

Otto Warburg's work is hugely important to our understanding of cellular metabolism and he studied differences in the metabolism of cancer cells. His observations eventually became associated with what we now call the Warburg effect, broadly describing the tendency of many cancer cells to rely heavily on glycolysis even when oxygen is available.

But I previously wrote that Warburg won the Nobel Prize in 1931 for discovering that cancer cells have an altered metabolism. That's not actually what his Nobel Prize was awarded for. He received it for his discovery of the nature and mode of action of the respiratory enzyme. His wider work included tumour metabolism, but those two things shouldn't be conflated. I could quietly delete the old sentence and pretend I never wrote it, obviously, but where's the fun in that?

WHAT DOES THE EVIDENCE LOOK LIKE NOW?

This is where supplements get difficult because there isn't really one answer. “Supplements” covers an enormous range of vitamins, minerals, plant extracts and other compounds, and the evidence for one tells you absolutely nothing about another.

There are plenty of laboratory studies showing potentially interesting effects from individual compounds. There are far fewer good clinical trials showing that taking a particular supplement improves survival for somebody with glioblastoma.

A UK Phase II trial published in 2026 is quite a useful example. Researchers tested a combination of seven micronutrients alongside standard chemoradiotherapy in 53 people with newly diagnosed glioblastoma. Median overall survival was 14 months in the group receiving the micronutrients and 13 months in the placebo group, but that difference was not statistically significant. It doesn't prove that every supplement is useless. It demonstrates how difficult it is to get from a plausible biological idea to evidence that something actually changes outcomes in people.

Boswellia is another interesting example and one I remember particularly well because we must have bought about fifteen bloody versions of Boswellia Serrata before finding the one we wanted. There has been human research suggesting Boswellia may help reduce cerebral oedema associated with brain radiotherapy, but a 2025 review of the clinical evidence concluded that the evidence remains limited and further research is needed. That's quite different from saying Boswellia treats glioblastoma itself.

That is probably the biggest shift in the way I read research now. I want to know whether something has been studied in a dish, in an animal, in a small group of people or in a properly controlled clinical trial, because all of those things can be described online as having “scientific evidence” behind them while meaning completely different things.

SUPPLEMENTS CAN STILL INTERACT WITH TREATMENT

This is probably the bit I would shout louder about now. A supplement being natural, widely available or sold without a prescription does not mean it can't affect cancer treatment or other medication. Supplements can have their own side effects and some can alter the way drugs are absorbed or metabolised. There are also particular questions around things such as high-dose antioxidants during chemotherapy or radiotherapy.

That doesn't mean everyone having cancer treatment should automatically stop every supplement. It means the people treating you need to know what you're taking and somebody appropriately qualified needs to look at the combination rather than each thing in isolation.

Memorial Sloan Kettering's About Herbs database is one resource I would use now when researching a supplement. It contains evidence-based information about herbs, vitamins and other supplements, including potential adverse effects and interactions. I would use it to help me understand what questions to ask, rather than as permission to add something to a treatment plan without discussing it with the medical team.

BUYING SUPPLEMENTS

The original version of this page contained a long list of websites and brands we used to buy supplements in 2021. I'm not carrying that list across. Partly that's because suppliers, formulations and products change, but mainly because I don't want a list of places we happened to shop five years ago to look like a recommendation from me about what somebody should buy now.

What I would say is that quality and formulation mattered to the people advising us. One of the more ridiculous examples was Boswellia, where I genuinely think we bought about fifteen different versions before finding the particular formulation we were looking for. Supplements became another logistical job in themselves: finding the right product, checking ingredients and doses, ordering things before we ran out and then keeping track of the increasingly absurd number of bottles in the house. If I were doing it now, I would still ask whoever was advising us exactly what they meant by a particular supplement rather than assuming every product with the same name was equivalent.

2026 UPDATE

If I were researching supplements now, AI would make parts of this enormously easier. I would use it to explain mechanisms I didn't understand, compare papers, organise evidence by supplement or pathway, pull out the difference between laboratory and human evidence and create questions to take back to the people advising us.

I would also be much more demanding about evidence. If something was described as having an anti-cancer effect, I would want to know what that actually meant. Did it kill glioblastoma cells in a laboratory? Did it do something interesting in mice? Has it actually been given to people with glioblastoma? Was there a control group? Did it affect a scan, symptoms, progression-free survival or overall survival? How many people were involved?

AI makes it very easy to find a mechanistic explanation for why almost anything might theoretically affect cancer. That can be incredibly useful for research, but it can also make weak evidence sound much more convincing than it is. I would use it to interrogate the evidence, not to prescribe a supplement protocol.

HINDSIGHT

WHAT WE KNOW NOW THAT WE WISH WE'D KNOWN THEN

I don't regret researching supplements or the wider metabolic approach. We were faced with an aggressive cancer and limited conventional options, and doing nothing beyond what was immediately put in front of us was never really going to be how Stu and I approached it. I am glad we asked questions, found people who could help us explore them and tried to understand his tumour beyond simply knowing that it was called glioblastoma.

What I would change is the certainty I sometimes attached to what I was reading. A study showing that a compound affects glioblastoma cells does not tell you that taking that compound will help a person with glioblastoma. A pathway being relevant to tumour biology doesn't mean you can successfully block it with a supplement. And a person doing unexpectedly well while following a particular protocol doesn't tell you which, if any, part of that protocol caused it.

I would also build the wider team around us much earlier. We eventually had Patrice, Dr Callebout, Dr Castro and others helping us make sense of different pieces of the picture, but I spent an enormous amount of time before that trying to become conversant in subjects I had absolutely no background in because I felt that if there was something out there that might help Stu, it was my job to find it.

I understand that instinct completely because I lived it. But knowing what I know now, I would try to hold two things at once: keep asking questions and looking, while remembering that I wasn't going to solve glioblastoma by finding the one paper or supplement everybody else had somehow missed. That would have been a considerably kinder way to research.

CURRENT INFORMATION

Research into supplements, cancer metabolism and integrative approaches continues to change, so I don't think it would be responsible for me to publish a static supplement protocol or tell somebody what they should take.

If you're considering a supplement during glioblastoma treatment, I would look at the current evidence for that specific supplement, check potential interactions and discuss it with the people responsible for your medical care. Tell them about everything you're taking, including vitamins, herbs and products you've bought yourself.

This page describes what we explored with Stu in 2021 and what I understand differently now. It isn't a supplement protocol, and none of the products or approaches mentioned here should be read as a recommendation for somebody else's treatment.

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