Processed sugar is a potent energy source. It causes a variety of changes in your body.
You may have heard that sugar can feed cancer cells. Is that true?
Sugars ‘Nourish’ Cancer Cells
For cancer patients, “sugar intake can indeed nourish cancer cells,” Mingyang Song, associate professor of clinical epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told The Epoch Times.
This is supported by strong epidemiological evidence, he said.
A study published in PLoS One involving 1,011 colon cancer patients with a follow-up period of over seven years found that compared to patients consuming less than two servings of sugar-sweetened beverages per month, those who consumed two or more servings per day experienced a 67 percent increased risk of colon cancer recurrence or mortality.
Another Spanish study published in Clinical Nutrition in 2021 involving over 7,000 participants found that for every additional 5 grams of sugar consumed in liquid form per day, cancer incidence increased by 8 percent. People with the highest intake experienced a 46 percent increase.
A can of soda usually contains 30 to 45 grams of sugar.
A shift in a population’s sugar consumption can significantly affect cancer rates. Lewis Cantley, a well-known biologist and professor of cell biology at Harvard Medical School, used Taiwan as an example in an email to The Epoch Times. He wrote that before World War II, Taiwan had relatively low rates of cancers, including colon, endometrial, and breast. That was when sugar-sweetened beverages were scarce. Then, in the 1960s and 1970s, with the introduction of Western diets—particularly sugary drinks—cancer rates there steadily began to rise. They’ve now reached a level comparable to those in the United States.
Cancer cells require a substantial amount of glucose to survive. In the 1930s, Otto Warburg, a German biochemist, discovered that both cancer cells and normal cells require sugar, but their metabolic pathways differ: Normal cells primarily convert glucose into energy through aerobic respiration, while cancer cells obtain energy through glycolysis instead of using oxygen.
By Flora Zhao
