Cancer & Sugar Connection

I have heard from many people, but no doctors, that cancer cells feed on sugar. It makes sense to me. When I was on chemo, all I wanted was sugar - cancer cells died  & they wanted what they needed to stay strong - sugar. I did not understand the connection three years ago, so I fed my cancer. I ate cakes, ice cream & whatever I could stomach - i.e. sugar and gluten filled treats. I gained weight & of course my cancer came back. I began to rethink this connection before my cancer returned. I really changed my diet 2yrs ago - the weight came off, I cut out sugar, & I felt better. Not one doctor told me to cut out sugar, so I wanted to find evidence that there is a connection with sugar and disease (not just diabetes). Recently, I decided to look around online to see if any big cancer sites could cite the connection, but most places said - "Just eat right." That could mean anything to the average person - eating right to one, might be eating three meals a day versus one. Eating right to me goes deeper than that so I did a little research.

Sugar is NEEDED to Scan for Cancer
Let us look at the PET Scan. PET Scans are use to monitor cancer metastasis in stage 4 patients & also to diagnose the extent of cancer in patients with early stage cancer. PET Scans require you to fast for 12-24hrs, drink a sugar laden drink before your scan & then you are injected with a radioactive tracer. I looked into the nature of this drink & tracer and found that - "At present, however, by far the most commonly used radiotracer in clinical PET scanning is fluorodeoxyglucose (also called FDG or fludeoxyglucose), an analogue of glucose that is labeled with fluorine-18. This radiotracer is used in essentially all scans for oncology and most scans in neurology, and thus makes up the large majority of all of the radiotracer (> 95%) used in PET and PET/CT scanning." It seems like FDG and the sugar drink attach themselves to the cancer cells, so they are lit up in the scan.

If PET Scans need sugar to show where cancer lives, it would make sense to conclude that Cancer Cells are attracted to sugar. Knowing this drove me to do more research. I found that in 1931 Nobel laureate in medicine, German Otto Warburg, Ph.D., first discovered that cancer cells have a fundamentally different energy metabolism compared to healthy cells. The crux of his Nobel thesis was that malignant tumors frequently exhibit an increase in anaerobic glycolysis -- a process whereby glucose is used as a fuel by cancer cells with lactic acid as an anaerobic byproduct -- compared to normal tissues. It has been almost 80 years since this conclusion has been made & the only thing standard medicine has used it for is PET Scans.

My next question is why don't traditional cancer therapies incorporate better, more in depth nutritional guidance by teaching us regulating blood-glucose levels via diet, supplements & finding more nutrient rich foods for patients who lose their appetites versus advising people to eat ice cream or milkshakes to keep on the weight. Over the last three years, I learned that most patients need professional guidance and education to understand it is not just standard treatment that will keep their cancer at bay, it is what we put into our bodies. The quest is not to eliminate sugars or carbohydrates from the diet but rather to control blood glucose within a narrow range to help starve the cancer and bolster immune function. This would just mean a simple education on the glycemic food index & also educating people about healthy, complex carbs/sugars versus simple/processed sugars.

Types of Sugar

• Dextrose, fructose, and glucose are all monosaccharides, known as simple sugars. The primary difference between them is how your body metabolizes them. Glucose and dextrose are essentially the same sugar. However, food manufacturers usually use the term "dextrose" in their ingredient list. 
• The simple sugars can combine to form more complex sugars, like the disaccharide sucrose (table sugar), which is half glucose and half fructose. 
• High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose. 
• Ethanol (drinking alcohol) is not a sugar, although beer and wine contain residual sugars and starches, in addition to alcohol. 
• Sugar alcohols like xylitol, glycerol, sorbitol, maltitol, mannitol, and erythritol are neither sugars nor alcohols but are becoming increasingly popular as sweeteners. They are incompletely absorbed from your small intestine, for the most part, so they provide fewer calories than sugar but often cause problems with bloating, diarrhea, and flatulence.
• Sucralose (Splenda) is NOT a sugar, despite its sugar-like name and deceptive marketing slogan, "made from sugar." It's a chlorinated artificial sweetener in line with aspartame and saccharin, with detrimental health effects to match.  
• Agave Syrup- falsely advertised as "natural," is typically HIGHLY processed and is usually 80 percent fructose. The end product does not even remotely resemble the original agave plant.
• Honey is about 53 percent fructose², but is completely natural in its raw form and has many health benefits when used in moderation, including as many antioxidants as spinach. 
• Stevia is a highly sweet herb derived from the leaf of the South American stevia plant, which is completely safe (in its natural form). Lo han (or luohanguo) is another natural sweetener, but derived from a fruit. 

If you had to pick a sugar - stick with Cane Sugar, Stevia or Honey. 
 
The Glycemic Index
Average people do not care about this. Most people thing of sugar as table sugar, but it is everywhere. We need to become more informed about what we put into our bodies by reading labels or steering towards whole foods. I have found it is just easy to steer myself towards natural, whole foods with lower sugar, but I also looked into various Glycemic Index Charts online. I found two that are helpful. A general rule of thumb - if it is white sugar, white bread, came in a package, comes in a syrup, has corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, did not originally come in that form, has ingredients that you cannot understand/are not real foods, or has more than 5 ingredients, it is NOT HEALTHY . We can assume that vegetables, fruits, and most whole grains/beans are of lower glycemic index, because no sugar is added & it is easier for us to digest.

The glycemic index of fruits can also be dangerous, some fruits are higher than others and its good to know what fruits to eat in moderation due to the fructose content.

Sugar a Culprit to Disease

The single largest source of calories for Americans comes from sugar—specifically high fructose corn syrup.

• In 1700, the average person consumed about 4 pounds of sugar per year.
• In 1800, the average person consumed about 18 pounds of sugar per year.
• In 1900, individual consumption had risen to 90 pounds of sugar per year.
• In 2009, more than 50 percent of all Americans consume one-half pound of sugar PER DAY—translating to a whopping 180 pounds of sugar per year!

Sugar is loaded into your soft drinks, fruit juices, sports drinks, and hidden in almost all processed foods—from bologna to pretzels to Worcestershire sauce to cheese spread. And now most infant formula has the sugar equivalent of one can of Coca-Cola, so babies are being metabolically poisoned from day one of taking formula.

The increase in sugar has led to an increase in diseases in young & old. The incidents of Type 2 diabetes, obesity, depression, hypertension, cancer, and other inflammatory diseases have increased significantly over the last 300yrs & have become more prominent in young people. In the past, these were diseases that were for the old or were so rare they were not considered to be an epidemic. In 2013, diabetes, obesity, hypertension, cancer, autoimmune diseases, inflammatory diseases, and mental health issues have become an epidemic. I found that most of these diseases are due to our changes in lifestyles and the fact that we have become dependent on sugar. There are at least 72 diseases that are connected to excessive sugar consumption. This website kindly lists everything sugar consumption can lead to: 141 Sugar Related Diseases.


SUGAR IS A DRUG
Sugar addiction is the term for the relationship between sugar and the various aspects of food addiction including: "bingeing, withdrawal, craving and cross-sensitization". Some scientists assert that consumption of sweets or sugar could have a heroin addiction like effect. I would suggest reading this: Sugar is A DRUG. Sugar has been found to be as dangerous as excessive alcohol, tobacco use, and street drug use. I am sure after reading that article you might start to think that the sugar is "Tricking" you into thinking you need it, because you now are dependent on it. You have become a slave to the sugar and you are now compromising your health just to get your sugar rush.