Health app founder dies after a brain tumour battle aged 36 – just years after her husband died following rare cancer in his abdomen

Health app founder Freyja Hanstein has died after a brain tumour battle – just a few years after her husband died following a rare cancer in his abdomen.

Mrs Hanstein, 36, founded the NHS-approved health app Wholesome World after she tragically lost her husband Lars, then aged 28, to cancer one month after they married in 2014.

The following year, she was diagnosed with a brain tumour when she was just 26.

Still dealing with the loss of her soulmate, she was forced to ‘put a padlock on her grief’ and fight her own health battle – which led to the creation of her ‘cancer-fighting’ app that would help generations to come. 

Wholesome World confirmed their founder died ‘peacefully in her sleep’ on November 16 after experiencing ‘complications’ from a recurrence of her tumour.

Mrs Hanstein met her husband while touring Indonesia in 2011, and said he turned up in London moments after she got home.

Lars had already struggled through his first cancer diagnosis in 2010, before he met Freya, which was considered ‘cured’ by way of an operation and chemotherapy.

But the Synovial Sarcoma cancer – commonly found in the joints but in Lars’ case appeared in his abdomen – returned in 2012 when he turned 26.

‘It’s rare, aggressive and normally surgically removed,’ the widow said at the time. 

‘But the placement of Lars’ cancer made it difficult to take out’.

Multiple rounds of chemotherapy were unsuccessful, even when he put a strong focus on fitness, his diet and mental health.

He died on November 6, 2014, one month after the couple got married.

Mrs Hanstein’s own diagnosis was a ‘heavy hit’ a year later, as hospital staff informed her she had high grade Oligodendroglioma.

‘Due to its size and grade the tumour in the temporal lobe of my brain was operated on very quickly,’ she said previously.

In 2019, she thought she was out of the woods as scans revealed that only scar tissue was growing in place of where the tumour had been, a sign that the brain is healing.

She said at the time: ‘I have scans every six months but I am officially free from cancer. Touch wood it will stay this way forever.’

But in a tragic turn of events, Mrs Hanstein died on November 16 this year due to ‘complications from a recurrence of her cancer’, a spokesperson for her health app said. 

Wholesome World said: ‘It is with the most profound sense of loss that we share the sad news that Freyja Hanstein, Wholesome World’s creator, has passed away.

‘She died peacefully in her sleep in the morning of the November 16 of as a result of complications from a recurrence of her cancer.

‘That you are reading this is testament to Freyja’s immense strength, positivity and perseverance.

‘She created Wholesome World after losing her husband Lars to cancer, while in remission after her own first fight with a brain tumour.

‘This project has been Freyja’s way of transforming those dark experiences into something positive and nourishing.

‘Her love and creativity built Wholesome World, and we are immeasurably proud to have been here to support her, and to carry on what she started.

‘Freyja found beauty in the world wherever she went, and joy in sharing that beauty, reflecting it back to make those around her happy.

‘She shared what she loved; a walk by the ocean, a delicious meal, a song, a poem, a cheeky smile.

‘She was the girl with the flowers in her hair and a kind word for everyone. She was the woman who lost everything and stood up again, and again.

‘She is the daughter, the sister, the irreplaceable friend who will be missed and mourned and loved by everyone who knew her.’