Like all living things, cancer cells need to eat, and scientists have long tried to figure out how to starve tumors to death. A lot of that effort has focused on stifling the cells’ ability to digest glucose, a simple sugar thought to be the main food source for cancer.

The glucose route has been ineffective, says William Lowry, a biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. 

He has an idea why. A new study that Lowry and his team published in Science Advances on Friday suggests that cancer cells readily consume multiple food sources, and their ability to metabolize at least two of these nutrients must be blocked to have an effect. That work, done in mice, might help scientists open a new way to treat cancer by targeting its metabolism.