Sugar and Cancer, not a love story

People ask me for what my favorite breakfast smoothie is. To their surprise my response is ‘something that contains mostly veggies (spinach, lettuce, cucumber, ginger, seeds…), some protein shake and a healthy fat’. Then, with a puzzled look I get the question, ‘where are the fruits? honey? sugar? anything sweet?’. That’s when I say, ‘you asked me for breakfast not dessert’. Although I prefer some eggs, veggies and avocado for breakfast, there are days when I want something sweet. If I do add fruit to my smoothies, it is usually one and not a mélange of different sorts. I’d rather not have something really sweet in the morning, especially not on an empty stomach, and here is why...

I am to nourish my body and every healthy cell in it, not those darn cancer cells.

The first meal of the morning sets the metabolism and can influence the food choices throughout the day. Sugar will leave me craving for more sweets. Most importantly, and maybe my main reason is that cancer cells love sugar and to the body sugar is sugar regardless of where it came from. When I first learned about sugar and other foods that contribute to cancer, I almost pooped in my pants. Not that I have a ridiculous love for sweets, but still, I set myself to learn more about this gummy situation and try to avoid foods that might help cancer cells thrive.

My first lesson about sugar and cancer was a visual demonstration on not other better subject than myself. As part of the diagnosis I had a PET scan done where the the patient receives an injection into the vein of a small amount of radioactive glucose (sugar). This radioactive sugar is picked up by all cells, but it is the cancer cells that will rapidly feast on it and light up like fireworks on 4th of July, therefore showing the exact location where the cancer cells are clustered. I am a visual person, with a curious mind and with a scientist eye. I couldn’t help to visualize what really was happening at a cellular level inside my body every time I ate a cookie or if I had a sugary drink. Although the thought of lighting up like a firefly was cool to think as a kid, I don’t like the idea of a light show inside my body. (the photo shows a PET scan of a patient with lymphoma, red zones are the hot spots :(

Cancer cells are more addicted to sugar than you think. They are extremely hungry and have a higher metabolism than any healthy normal cell. A third of some common cancers have an insulin receptors (20 times more) on the tumor cell that feed of glucose supply that normally will go to other cells. In other words, it is like having many hungry mouths waiting to be fed. In the last blog we reviewed what happens with an overdose of sugar and carbohydrate in the body: overproduction of insulin to deliver the excess sugar to the cells through the blood. With excess insulin, those cancer cells with extra hungry mouths for insulin are having a feast while healthy cells could starve to death.

Increased sugar consumption and elevated insulin also create an optimal environment for inflammation. What is the link between inflammation and cancer? Inflammation is a natural and normal process to protect the body from invaders, it is the prolonged and increased inflammation that sets the immune response on high alert and turns against itself. Tumor and cancer cells use the inflammatory process to signal their own cells to grow and multiply. Also, insulin has been linked to the production of a growth hormone that as the name implies promotes growth. Some cancer and tumor cells will take advantage of this and grow faster. Those are really sneaky little bastards.

As you can see, excess sugar breaks havoc in the body, and one of the organs that pays the price is the liver. The liver serves many vital functions: filters toxins out of the body including alcohol and medication. Also, fructose is processed in the liver and converted to fat and stored in the fatty tissue. For cancer patients and those of compromised health, the liver requires extra care because it is one of the organs that works the most. Even more so when the patient is undergoing chemotherapy. In addition to its regular function to keep up with the basic needs of the body, the liver has to do extra work to detoxify from all the toxins and chemicals from the treatment. If you think about it, it is a lot of strain for that organ, so it is best not to take it for granted and do a better job taking care of it.

How would you like your coffee with pesticide?

For some folks, it might be too much giving up on sugar, especially their sugary drinks or the morning coffee. Thank goodness for those alternative sweeteners, uh!?! Not so much sweet friends, many have been linked to health problems like some cancers and obesity. And what about the DIET options in sodas and energy drinks? Aspartame is a common ingredient in diet drinks that breaks into formaldehyde in the body, it is a neurotoxin that causes inflammation and neurological problems. Despite of the alarming finding, the demand of these lab formulated sweeteners keeps on the rise. Unfortunately, instead of changing habits and reducing sugar intake, people are more inclined to find alternatives, and in order to keep with the demand, manufacturers come up with different options. One of the latest is sucralose or Splenda that we have seen become very popular because it contains no calories with no spikes in blood sugar and no long-term side effects that we know of. However, did you know that Splenda was originally discovered in an attempt to create a pesticide? Hear this, the chemical structure of Splenda is not much different from that of DDT. How is that for a pesticide frothy latte?

Of course natural sugar from fruits and vegetables is a better option, but it will still have the same insulin-glucose reaction in the body. That’s why I get a little worried when people choose to have fruit juices or smoothies so early in the morning as their only meal, thinking that they are being healthy because it is natural. That’s a lot of sugar to handle first thing in the morning. I'll save one of those fruit smoothies for an afternoon snack. It is important to mention that it is not solely fructose that is the problem, it is the overused supply that food manufacturers use in their products. In reality sugar and derivatives are in many food products in the market that disrupts liver metabolism.

Here are some of the names to look out for. The list almost never ending, and even honey and raw sugar are found in the list because after all they are sugar. But my rule of tumb is to always go with the most natural, not processed and in moderation.

Things to keep in mind:

• sugar, excess carbohydrates and processed foods promote inflammation

• inflammation is the mother of (almost) all chronic diseases including many cancers

• excess insulin becomes a growth promoter for cancer cells, needless to say that insulin is also pro-inflammatory

• refined sugar is acid-forming in the body and has been associated with some cancers

• cancer cells persuade healthy cells to form blood vessels to feed more cancer cells → growth

• circulating insulin throughout the body promote cancer tumor metastasize and spread to other parts of the body

• alternative sweeteners are as bad or worse than sugar

One take-home message is that cancer cells function differently than healthy cells and one difference is that cancer cells require much more sugar to function. Therefore, it might help tremendously to cut down on refined sugars from the diet and create an anti-inflammatory environment in the body to help starve those cancer cells.