Does sugar actually feed cancer?
oncology dietitian, she has heard many questions from her cancer patients about how their diets influence their prognosis. But one question has come up more than the rest: Will consuming sugary foods and drinks feed my cancer cells, making my condition worse? «Cancer patients are so vulnerable, and some of them are terrified to eat,» said Shawhan, who practices at the University of Cincinnati Cancer Center.
«They think, 'If I stop eating sugar, then I can starve my cancer.'» The «sugar feeds cancer» narrative goes back to the 1920s, when a German physiologist noticed that some tumor cells consumed more glucose than healthy cells did. Soon after, low-sugar diets sprang up claiming to cure cancer.
Recent polls from the United States and Europe suggest about a third of cancer patients actively avoid sugar. While experts say that diets high in added sugars may increase your risk of cancer over a lifetime, cutting out all sugars doesn't actually fight existing tumors.
«Every cell requires glucose, our brain requires glucose,» said Philipp Scherer, a diabetes researcher at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. In other words, the best way to eat if you have cancer — or are trying to lower your risk of getting it — is with a balanced, healthy diet.Sugar's role in cancer risk Sugar isn't a carcinogen, Scherer said.
There's no evidence showing that eating sugar will cause cancer itself (like, say, smoking cigarettes would). Besides, Scherer added, «many, many cancers prefer to use fat as their primary energy source, so even the idea that cancers prefer glucose isn't quite true.» Still, a limited yet growing body of evidence has linked the overconsumption of added sugars (the kind found in cookies, cakes and soft drinks) to
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