Testing a Special Diet for Brain Tumor Weight Gain in Young People

This trial is testing whether a modified ketogenic diet—a high-fat, low-carbohydrate eating plan—can help reduce excessive weight gain in young people who have had brain tumors in a part of the brain called the hypothalamus. Brain tumors and their treatments can damage the body's ability to control weight and appetite, leading to severe obesity that doesn't respond to typical diets or exercise. Researchers want to see if this special diet, which has been safely used for decades to treat childhood seizures, might also help control this hard-to-treat weight problem.

Young people with hypothalamic brain tumors often gain a lot of weight even when they diet and exercise, because the tumor or its treatment damages the part of the brain that controls hunger and metabolism. Standard weight-loss approaches don't work well for this type of obesity, so doctors are exploring whether the ketogenic diet—which changes how the body uses energy—might be more effective.