Prot©g© of Gordon Ramsay claims food helped him beat brain cancer

When chef John Lawson, who trained Gordon Ramsay, was diagnosed with brain cancer, he turned to food to fight the disease.

Lawson strongly believes it was his change in diet that helped him recover after he went through surgery in 2015.

"I was unable to speak, my memory had gone," Lawson told the Daily Mail of the time he was sick. "For weeks, I was bedbound. I couldn’t recognise my family. I knew inside who they were, but I couldn’t find the words."

After consulting with experts on what he could do to recover, he decided it was time to start living a healthy lifestyle. Extensive research led him to the 'ketogenic' diet, which he credits to his success in combating the disease.

This diet, which is low in carbohydrate and high in fat, is believed to starve tumours of energy

"Tumour cells are programmed to grow fast and they need lots of energy to do this — preferably glucose," Kevin O’Neill, a consultant neurosurgeon and head of the brain tumour clinical service at Imperial College Healthcare, London, told the Daily Mail.

New research is already showing evidence that this diet can affect brain chemistry. "Changing the body’s energy source to ketones seems to produce changes that calm the brain down," O’Neill explained.

Adding, "Many people with low-grade brain tumours present with epilepsy, so it may control that — and from animal studies we know the ketogenic diet may affect tumour growth."

Experts hope the diet can be incorporated as part of the treatment process for many patients.

Brain tumours are a major cancer killer of people under the age of 40.