“Does Sugar Feed Cancer?” Yes. Here’s how… 2

Hello bOObs Blogettes:

We have some new people joining our group and I had a lot of interest in my last blog about reversing a bad situation brewing in my breast through lifestyle changes. So I thought I’d repost this blog about how sugar affects our bodies and contributes to chronic diseases, such as breast cancer.

This is one of the single most important facts to understand that enables you to prevent or beat back cancer (and chronic disease in general): Sugar is cancer’s best friend!  Whether you have cancer or you don’t want to get it in the future, this is a critical part of the equation for you to understand — because many doctors do not. Why don’t they? Because the weren’t taught much nutrition in med school (talk to any doctor to confirm this) and many have forgotten basic biochemistry being out of school for so long. Plus, if you just Google cancer and sugar you’ll see misinformation all over the place — including on prominent associations’ websites — that say there is little to no connection between the two and that this is a “myth.” We’re going to find out why that’s wrong.

I’ve taken biochemistry twice: once in college, once in grad school (not fun, but well worth the pain). When I was trying to figure out why non-conventional doctors were telling me that sugar for a cancer patient was the Devil Incarnate, meanwhile conventional doctors were telling my friends, “No, sugar doesn’t feed cancer cells any more than it feeds all cells in the body — go ahead and shovel it in!” (see story below), I wanted to figure out who was right.

What’s funny is this: When I looked up sugar’s relationship to cancer in my college biochemistry textbook (yes, I’m a science nerd; I still have it), there was the straightforward answer staring me right in the face. They even had a special little box made up just for the topic, stating that sugar feeds cancer at a higher rate than other cells. Further, I discovered there are peer-reviewed university studies that support this.

Cancer is very, very smart. There are two cellular metabolic pathways in the body: aerobic (one that requires oxygen) and anaerobic (one that does not require oxygen). Cancer has somehow figured out how to evolve to just as readily use the less efficient anaerobic pathway. It’s inefficient because it takes 8 more times the amount of sugar to feed this anaerobic cycle than the aerobic cycle, and in turn spits out very little energy on the other end for the body’s use.

What’s telling is that a cancer cell has 8 times the amount of insulin receptors on its cell wall than other cells have, thus cancer is capable of using 8 times the amount of sugar. In other words, CANCER IS A SUGAR-EATING MACHINE.

But here’s the clincher:  This machine can only carry out its mission if your blood carries large amounts of excess sugar in it.  So if you have excess sugar in your blood that your body can’t readily utilize, where is it going to go? You got it! To the cancer cells that are sitting there poised with all those extra insulin (hence, sugar-receiving) receptors.

See what I’m getting at here? Let’s dig a little deeper:

What cancer really loves is processed sugar, e.g., largely known as table sugar or sucrose. While sucrose can be naturally occurring, it can also be manmade via a refinement process. Sucrose is made of the two sugars glucose and fructose. Manmade sucrose is not very good for you to ingest for many reasons. Sugar made into the form of High-Fructose Corn Syrup, found in much of our processed grocery foods and soft drinks, is now known to be something to avoid entirely — bad, bad stuff.

Further, I had one Swiss doctor explain that if a cancer patient wants to eat fruit, they should stick to “hard” fruits such as apples and the like vs. the “soft” fruits like bananas. Why? because the soft fruits have higher fructose levels (vs. glucose) which feeds more readily into the anaerobic cycle that cancer is built for.

This might be more than you want to understand but I found it interesting, albeit controversial amongst scientists: That same Swiss doctor (Dr. Manfred Doepp, who is in my film) also explained that many processed sugars are Left-spinning sugars, meaning if you put them into an optical machine used for chemical analysis, they spin the light in a left-handed direction. Why is this important? Because the body doesn’t like “Leftie” sugars and can use them for diabolical reasons — such as feeding cancer cells. Natural sugars, on the other hand, are Right-spinning sugars and the body metabolizes them with much more ease. In fact, some Leftie sugars pass right through the body entirely and is therefore of little nutritional or energy use.

BOOBS BOTTOM LINE: If you keep the amount of excess sugar in your blood to a minimum and only eat natural sugars when you do indulge, cancer cells in your body (we all have some cancer cells, as you’re probably heard) will have a very difficult time doing what they love to do: MULTIPLY RAPIDLY. In other words, if you starve yourself of processed sugar as much as possible, you’re also starving any cancer cells in your body. Now that is a worthwhile project!:)

The other thing you’re doing in cutting back on sugar is alkalizing your blood. Sugar is an acidic molecule. The body likes blood to be a hair alkaline (roughly pH = 7.4, or slightly basic). Cancer LOVES acidic blood, hence an acidic environment. In fact, cancer even creates it’s own acidic surroundings when it uses the anaerobic cycle because the product from that cycle is lactic acid. Does “lactic acid” sound familiar? We all have heard that if you exercise really hard, you’ll get burning muscles from lactic acid. Why? Because your muscles have run out of oxygen and are now forced to work under anaerobic conditions which muscles don’t like — hence they bark at ya.

So by cutting back on the sugar, you’re also slowing down — even potentially killing — the cancer by taking away both its food supply and its acidic state, basically neutralizing its acidic environs by alkalizing your blood (base + acid = neutral environment).

PERSONAL STORY: I had a dear friend whose breast cancer returned after 30 years of remission. Her diet, quite frankly, was awful and contained large amounts of processed sugars and foods. I remember visiting her one day, watching her eat junk food for lunch. I told her that I’d heard from docs that sugar feeds cancer cells and suggested gently it might be wise to limit processed sugars. She later got back to me after speaking with her oncologist, who had told her that what I said was total baloney, that all cells utilize sugar (true, but see the above argument), and to go ahead and eat whatever she wants. She soon progressed to Stage 4 and sadly passed away.

Blog at you soon, thanks for reading and helping to spread the word! (Please see the “share” links below).

Stay healthy,

Megan

Megan Smith, M.S.
Director, bOObs: The War on Women’s Breasts

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