Sugar Really Does Feed Cancer

Sugar Really Does Feed Cancer

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There has long been a popular belief that sugar feeds the growth and spread of cancers – but it is an idea that has been repeatedly pooh-poohed by the establishment. For instance, Cancer Research UK says on its website: "You may have seen reports in the media that sugar feeds cancer. All cells in our body need sugar for energy, including cancer cells. But there is no evidence that restricting your sugar intake will stop a tumour growing."

The trouble with sweeping assertions like this is that they tend to backfire, like when they told us that sugar doesn't cause diabetes, or that saturated fat causes heart disease. Now, researchers at Imperial College, London, have identified a biological mechanism that triggers a rapid growth in cancer cells, in response to – sugar! Cancer cells are able to sense when blood sugar levels are high and turn on a metabolic switch that enables them to take in more sugar, and so grow and multiply faster.1

It has been known for many years that people who have diabetes are at higher risk of cancer, and the reasons for this connection are likely to be many and complex.2 For instance, previous studies have shown that high blood sugar levels switch on some cancer-related genes, as I explained in an earlier post here. The new research shows that, as well as raising the risk that cells will become cancerous, sugar really does fuel their development into aggressive tumours, particularly in people with diabetes.

In type 2 diabetes, normal body cells become insulin resistant – that is to say, they "tune out" to insulin and get progressively less responsive to its demands that they take up glucose from the blood. The authors of the new study have shown that cancer cells do just the opposite, they develop a high degree of sensitivity to insulin and open up more glucose channels to take on board the excess circulating in the blood.

But the glucose in your blood stream is just one factor that triggers and feeds the proliferation of cancer cells. Another kind of sugar – fructose, found in table sugar and high-fructose corn syrup – also speeds up their growth and spread.

In my next post, I will discuss how fructose promotes more aggressive cancers and how cancer cells prefer to use this raw material to manufacture cancerous proteins.