The modern industrial world presents us with many potential causes of malignancy and it is therefore surprising that this condition is not more common. The body, however, is resilient and it can take several sources of stress working in concert over a long period of time to ware down its protective mechanisms and regenerative power.

These sources of stress may include a genetic predisposition, a polluted environment, psychological stress, a chronically suppressed immune system, a persistent viral infection, the urban factory-food diet, and poor metabolism. Poor metabolism would include insufficient liver detoxification, congested channels of elimination, as well as a depleted store of internal antioxidants which protect us from the daily barrage of threats. This explains why there is no easy approach in treatment when using pharmaceutical drugs.

A pioneer of cancer research was the German physiologist Dr. Otto Warburg, a scientist many times nominated for the Nobel Prize. Almost a century ago, he claimed that tumour cells use sugar as their main source of fuel in a way that markedly differs from normal cellular metabolism. He showed that the preferred process of fuel production was glycolysis, a less-efficient one than the mitochondrial oxidation used by healthy cells. He thought that this occurred because rapidly-growing cancer cells have damaged or ineffective mitochondria.

In recent years research has shifted to the role of oncogenes and tumour suppressor genes which promote tumorigenesis by causing unregulated growth; however, research has also built on Warburg’s work, in particular the role of altered mitochondrial respiration. This occurs under conditions of ‘intermittent hypoxia experienced by pre-malignant and malignant tumour cells.’ It appears that the less-efficient pathway of glycolysis only works to the cancer cell’s advantage in an environment of high glucose availability, that is, sustained high blood sugar. The lactic acid produced by glycolysis may also stimulate the tumour’s invasive potential. The shift by cancer cells to this form of less-efficient pathway of energy metabolism, first observed by Warburg, is therefore actually a ‘favorable catabolic state for all rapidly proliferating mammalian cells with high glucose uptake capacity.’¹

In the 1960s the Sugar Research Foundation did its own review of the potential danger of sucrose by funding some interesting animal research (rats) at the University Of Birmingham. In this research, called Project 259, they compared the effects of a high-starch diet to a high-sugar diet and concluded that sugar consumption might be associated with bladder cancer, an unwelcome finding that prematurely terminated the project.²

Current research also supports a link between cancer and sugar consumption, particularly in research looking at breast cancer in mice. In this particular model, ‘sugar intake comparable to levels of Western diets led to increased tumour growth and metastasis, when compared to a non-sugar starch diet.’ The scientists also determined that the fructose portion of sucrose (glucose combined in equal measures with fructose) facilitated lung metastasis, but in this case it was via a different pathway, involving the dysregulation of fats.³

It is obvious from this research that sugar feeds cancer, as it does all cells; however, cancer cells grow faster than normal cells and have no brakes or regulatory mechanisms of the kind that restrain normal cells, which must fulfill strictly-defined individual as well as social functions in tissues and organs. Excess sugar is therefore  part of a multifactorial cause which includes other toxic elements of the diet, lifestyle and environment.

Indeed, a recent survey of the dietary habits of 104,980 French participants (NutriNet-Santé cohort) demonstrated that just increasing the proportion of ‘ultra-processed’ foods in the diet by 10% was associated with an increase of greater than 10% in risks of overall cancer. Such industrial foods could include breads, confectionery, deserts, soft drinks, meat nuggets, instant noodles, soups and ready-made meals, which for many people are staple food items.

The authors also went into detail about factory-food preparation: ‘Industrial processes notably include hydrogenation, hydrolysis, extruding, moulding, reshaping, and pre-processing by frying. Flavouring agents, colours, emulsifiers, humectants, non-sugar sweeteners, and other cosmetic additives are often added to these products to imitate sensorial properties of unprocessed or minimally processed foods and their culinary preparations or to disguise undesirable qualities of the final product…beyond nutritional composition, neoformed contaminants, some of which have carcinogenic properties (such as acrylamide, heterocyclic amines, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), are present in heat treated processed food products as a result of the Maillard reaction. Secondly, the packaging of ultra-processed foods may contain some materials in contact with food for which carcinogenic and endocrine disruptor properties have been postulated, such as bisphenol A. Finally, ultra-processed foods contain authorised, but controversial, food additives such as sodium nitrite in processed meat or titanium dioxide (TiO₂, white food pigment), for which carcinogenicity has been suggested in animal or cellular models.’⁴

Cancer treatment can itself appear much like an industrial process with its barrage of chemical and radiation therapy, carrying unfortunate side-effects for a vulnerable patient. Nevertheless, oncology often makes headway with startling discoveries that hint at future better-targeted therapies such as the recent immunotherapy drug called Keytruda, intended for the treatment of melanoma, or the brain cancer vaccine DCVax.

But those suffering degenerative disease don’t have to hold out for a high-tech ‘magic bullet’, and can start instead with interventions suggested by the current evidence-based research. The recommended alternative treatment for cancer is, not surprisingly, a strict ketogenic diet (low-carb) designed to starve the cancer. In addition, the avoidance of all factory foods is necessary because refined sugar comes inseparable from other cancer-promoting chemicals found in them, which is why epidemiological research is often inconclusive—sugar is the standard bearer of a whole legion of toxic trouble.

Even if we just look at obesity, the gross consequence of eating too much factory-food, we find that it is a well-recognised risk factor for cancers including ‘endometrial, esophageal adenocarcinoma, colorectal, postmenopausal breast, prostate, and renal, whereas the less common malignancies are leukemia, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, multiple myeloma, malignant melanoma, and thyroid tumours.’⁵ In fact, in Australia 3,917 cancers were attributed to obesity in 2010.⁶

This article is an extract from the eBook Sweet Tooth, Rotten Health.

Disclaimer: this article is intended for the purpose of general education only, and is not a substitute for diagnosis, treatment advice, or a prescription that is given in a consultation with a qualified physician.

References:

1.    Vazquez A, Liu J, Zhou Y, Oltvai ZN. Catabolic efficiency of aerobic glycolysis: the Warburg effect revisited. BMC Syst Biol 2010;4:58.

2.    Kearns CE, Apollonio D, Glantz SA. Sugar industry sponsorship of germ-free rodent studies linking sucrose to hyperlipidemia and cancer: An historical analysis of internal documents. PLoS Biol 2017;15:e2003460.

3.    Jiang Y, Pan Y, Rhea PR, et al. A Sucrose-Enriched Diet Promotes Tumorigenesis in Mammary Gland in Part through the 12-Lipoxygenase Pathway. Cancer Res 2016;76:24–9.

4.    Fiolet T, Srour B, Sellem L, et al. Consumption of ultra-processed foods and cancer risk: results from NutriNet-Santé prospective cohort. BMJ 2018;360:k322.

5.    De Pergola G, Silvestris F. Obesity as a major risk factor for cancer. J Obes 2013;2013:291546.

6.    Kendall BJ, Wilson LF, Olsen CM, et al. Cancers in Australia in 2010 attributable to overweight and obesity. Aust N Z J Public Health 2015;39:452–7.