Cancer cells get energy via sugar fermentation

katcar0001

New Belgian study says, "The hyperactive sugar consumption of cancerous cells leads to a vicious cycle of continued stimulation of cancer development and growth."

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/belgi...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01019-z

The second article is the Belgian study... it is a difficult read, but maybe those with a more scientific mind can decipher it.

I am having trouble eliminating sugar from my diet, but now I am freaked out by this latest study. I was using Stevia until I found out that it it mostly dextrose--another form of sugar and has very little actual Stevia. I've tried the leaf version of Stevia, and I cannot stand the taste. I love sugar in my coffee with milk (another no-no according to many sources)--one of my few guilty pleasures other than a piece of dark chocolate daily. I rarely buy sweets, but I love my dark chocolate and the occasional dessert--esp. when dining out or at a friend's house. I like jam on my toast. I like fruit in my smoothies. I like bananas and other forms of sugar-laden fruits. I like bread and pasta. Are we to cut out all forms of sugar?

Anonymous

Hi katcar0001,

Here's a plain language article entitled "Sugar and Cancer: What You Need To Know" from the Cancer Research Institute of the UK. It tackles some of the claims about the cancer growth and sugar consumption myth, and does a good job of it. If you google "sugar fuels cancer" you'll get some pretty good information from Mayo Clinic, and the NCI, too....

http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2017/05/15...

Here's another good article, MD Anderson--yes, sugar fuels cancer cells but it fuels all our cells, and the article gives some good guidelines about how much daily sugar is good for us to eat. The article reminds us that it's weight gain from sugar that increases cancer risk, not eating sugar itself. Everything in moderation, I think the article is telling us....

https://www.mdanderson.org/publications/focused-on...

windingshores

One of my kids has type 1 diabetes. We can see the effects of various foods very quickly on the continuous glucose monitor she wears. Food like ripe bananas, white rice, potatoes, and bagels shoot sugar content in the blood up almost as fast as pure glucose.

I really appreciated the articles linked here.

I am skinny and got breast cancer, and my mother is overweight, 90 years old, and has no cancer at all. Really, I don't go along with generalizations.

Something sweet (and small)  is a pleasure for me, usually once a day.  Life if tough. We shouldn't restrict ourselves unless proven necessary!!

katcar0001

windingshores, I am staying with a friend, and she had a severe diabetic hypoglycemic reaction last night to the point I thought we were going to have to call an ambulance. Fortunately, after a few chocolates, she came out of it. She is insulin dependent as her pancreas is virtually dead. She has had it since her early 30's.

As far as cancer and sugar, I feel a bit more at ease now after your message and after reading the article from the admins. I am thin. I don't buy cookies, candy, ice cream or sweets other than dark chocolate. If we go out to dinner, I might have or share a dessert with someone, but we don't go out that often. I am going to continue with a half tsp. of sugar in my coffee. Yesterday, I had none but I did not enjoy it.

My grandmother is 94, never had any major illnesses and has always eaten what she wanted. She has a big sweet tooth. You and I just got the short end of the crapshoot stick. :-(. I am glad we can have some guilt-free pleasures as long as we do not over-do it!

Anonymous

What I found helpful about my links is that they attributed the "eating sugar causes cancer" rumor to simplified science. I am thin too. Athlete. Vegan/vegetarian for years. I stopped smoking over 20 years ago and even then was only a part-time smoker for a short while. No one in my family other than a maternal aunt has been dx with breast cancer. However, I was exposed to above ground fallout from nuclear testing in Nevada when I was 3 years old. That probably had something to do with it. I was also highly ER+--have had two surgeries to remove fibroids from my uterus--and I also had a super-rare benign tumor called a pheochromocytoma (adrenal tumor) that darn near killed me before I self-dx and had the surgery to get rid of it. I think we underestimate our exposure to environmental pollutants, which I think contributes to pushing a cell to some aberration, causing it to go haywire and multiply.

katcar0001

Oops, Claire, I thought those links were from the admins because I got them in my email and clicked from there and didn't realize where they were coming from. Anyway, thank you, and yes, I agree--the science does seem over-simplified. You have certainly been exposed to a number of scary environmental factors that show a definite cause/effect. I have no family history and no radiation exposure other than x-rays. But I think being on HRT, being a woman with breasts, being tall (more cells), having an interrupted pregnancy, being on the pill when I was young (for misdiagnosis of endometriosis) all contributed in spite of being healthy, thin and eating well. While we still got dealt the bad hand, I don't think it hurts to continue living a healthy lifestyle and cutting down on sugar and other bad foods.

Anonymous

Katcar1000, I agree completely. So many of us, just by physiology, etc. are at risk.

I had dense breasts, which also didn't help. I felt protected by 5 clear mammos, since I never heard that dense breasts can hide dangers. A self-exam was what saved me, and if I had been carrying weight, I would never have found it, since it was 2 c. and nearly under my armpit. I could feel it because I'm thin and it was on top of my ribs.

Claire

katcar0001

Oh, yes, the dreaded dense breasts. I had those too. I see that you had a lumpectomy. Did you find that your breasts lost density after taking Tamoxifen?

Anonymous

Hi kat, not that I knew, but I was only on tamox for a year, and then I switched to arimidex; right after that switch I had my BMX/recon surgery, so I really don't know what might have happened. My mother was in her 80s and still had dense breasts. I think it's hereditary, partly.

I didn't let my breast tissue hang around long enough to find out.