Sugar and Cancer: A Sweet Relationship?

Sugar and Cancer: A Sweet Relationship? (for breast cancer survivors)

You may already know that simple sugars and carbohydrates cause an almost
immediate rise in blood glucose levels. The problem with this scenario is that
cancer cells have a voracious appetite for sugar. Dr. Otto Warburg first discovered
the connection in 1924, when his research revealed that cancer cells generate energy
in a way that differs from normal cells, utilizing a process called glycolysis, a
discovery for which he later won the Nobel Prize. He contended that this process
was so dependent on glucose that he dubbed tumors “obligate sugar metabolizers”:
“Cancer, above all other diseases, has countless secondary causes. But, even for
cancer, there is only one prime cause. Summarized in a few words, the prime cause
of cancer is the replacement of the respiration of oxygen in normal body cells by a
fermentation of sugar” (Warburg 1966). Warburg observed—and that observation
has not been challenged in almost a century of subsequent research—that not only
does consuming sugars and simple carbs rapidly raise blood glucose, but also the
fast, abrupt nature of this increase triggers a healthy pancreas to respond by
overproducing insulin in order to bring the levels down to a normal range as
quickly as possible. This initially healthy response, however, can lead to very
unhealthy consequences. Insulin and its close relative IGF-1 are powerful cellular
growth promoters (Hadsell and Bonnette 2000). In other words, these hormones
have the job of sending “grow” messages to your tissues.

The connection among blood glucose, insulin, and breast cancer has been
documented for decades. For example, a 1985 mouse study (Santisteban et al.)
indicated that higher blood glucose levels resulted in shorter survival times in mice
with breast cancer, with the response being “dose dependent.” In other words, the
higher the blood glucose levels, the poorer the outcomes.

What’s critical to understand is that simple carbohydrates (white bread, rice,
pasta, pastries, and so on) convert to simple sugar within moments of your chewing
them. Complex carbohydrates, those with intact fiber and germ, on the other hand,
release their glucose more slowly and more healthfully into the bloodstream. We’ll
discuss more on sugar, insulin, and cancer in next explain about Glucose, Weight, and Insulin Control.

Time for an Oil Change?

Fats and oils have an intimate relationship with cancer, because they either
promote or inhibit inflammation, a topic that we will discuss in detail in next explain about Inflammation.

The nature of fats and oils changed dramatically about fifty years ago, when
processed foods started coming into their own as a mainstay of the American diet.
During those years, food manufacturers started looking for a way to preserve the
shelf life of processed foods as well as home and industrial cooking oils and fats.

Very quickly, genuine fats became factory fats; that is, they were replaced with
hydrogenated trans fats, a new, lab-created fake fat that was completely foreign to
the human body.

So what happens when you actually eat this stuff? Because trans fats are similar
in chemical composition to real fats, your body believes that they are real, and uses
them in all the places where real fats are designed to go—especially the allimportant
cell membrane. In the words of diet guru Sally Fallon (2001), your cells
actually become partially hydrogenated! Why is this a problem? Because all
nutrients and waste products must pass through this vital cellular gatekeeper (the
cell membrane), we cannot afford to have membranes that are rigid and hard,
inhibiting the smooth exchange of nutrients and waste products.

America’s Other Drinking Problem

In the United States, we’re told that our water is among the purest in the world,
but a closer look reveals a startlingly different story. Vital to health and to life, clean
water is the only liquid the body actually needs, and nothing can replace it. Opinions
vary as to how much we need each day (48 to 64 ounces, by most accounts), but
need it we do, whether it comes from our food, our tap, or bottles. In 2009 the
Environmental Working Group (EWG) disclosed that more than 260 contaminants
had been detected in tens of thousands of samples of tap water, many of them
petrochemicals and their by-products. What’s more, over half of the contaminants
were unregulated. Of these unregulated toxins, the EWG concluded that 53 are
linked to cancer, 41 to reproductive toxicity, 36 to developmental toxicity, and 16 to
immune-system damage. For others, no health information seems to exist at all.

Based on these troubling findings, the pollution of our water seems to be one
more possible contributor to the ever-growing cancer epidemic in our country.