Why Remove Sugar to Fight Cancer

Identify hidden sources of sugar in your diet.  Even some drinks we consider healthy such as juices may contain more sugar than we expect.  While fruit juices have less sugar than softdrinks for example, it's still a lot of sugar.  Consider eating the whole fruit instead so that you get the other nutrients and fiber in the fruit to help modulate the blood sugar raising effects of sugar. 

One of the first and most basic dietary changes someone with cancer or a history of cancer should make is simple: to remove sugars and simple carbohydrates from their diet.

There are several ways to do this in daily life:

• Start home cooking every meal so that you know what goes into your foods.  Eat a LOT of vegetables (3-5 cups cooked volume; double that if you are eating salads or raw vegetables.  Eat mostly nutritious whole grains and beans with a low glycemic index. Include non-inflammatory proteins (such as fish and chicken; significantly minimize or eliminate beef and pork) specially if you are undergoing chemotherapy or radiation to help maintain your immune system and to support the repair of body cells and tissues which are collaterally damaged by these potentially life-saving treatments. 
• Start reading the food labels which now clearly state how much sugar is in a serving of the food. Take note, however that many of these labels could be misleading.  For example, the small bottles of Odwalla or Naked juice will list 25grams of sugar per serving--but recall that every bottle has 2 or 2.5 servings which means that each bottle will have at least 50 grams of sugar.  If you translate that into teaspoons---50 grams is roughly the equivalent of 10 teaspoons of sugar!  Generally speaking, if a serving has more than 8 grams of sugar, it's probably better to not consume it.   One teaspoon of sugar is about 4-8 grams, 8 grams if heaping. 
• If you need a sweetener, consider low glycemic sweeteners such as stevia or agave nectar.  Stevia has almost no sugar.  However, agave nectar still contains sugar (although with a lower glycemic index, which means its effect on blood sugar levels is less than plain sugar) so still use agave nectar sparingly. 

Why is it important to eliminate sugar from the diet?  When I talk to holistic minded doctors and patients, the most common answer I get is:  because sugar feeds the cancer.  

Although simplistic, there is simple truth
to that statement and I would like to expound on it further based on some studies.  I believe that because the studies are not overwhelmingly conclusive yet, many oncologists will still tell the patient to "eat anything you want, it doesn't make a difference."   Yet, I believe it is so much more reasonable and beneficial to really look into how you can improve your diet, first by removing simple sugars.  Here's why:

• Sugar by itself is a fuel that can be used by cancer cells. 
• Sugar also triggers an insulin response when we eat it.  This means that a rapid increase of sugar in our blood stream will trigger our bodies to secrete a hormones called insulin and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1).  
• Insulin and IGF-1 can enhance the proliferation of cancer cells in lab studies.  We haven't done real life human experiments to prove this further yet. BUT, consider that several studies have observed that persons with higher blood sugars may have a higher risk of certain types of cancer including breast, colon, pancreatic; and have a lower risk of surviving cancer. 
• Did you know that cancer cells such as breast cancer actually have more receptors for insulin and IGF-1 on their cell surfaces?  This may amplify the bad effects of sugar on cancer cells because cancer cells are more easily stimulated to proliferate. 
• Elevated levels of sugar in the blood can be pro-inflammatory and has been shown to stimulate inflammatory molecules such as interleukins and TNF's which in turn may propagate the proliferation of the cells and prevent tumor cells from dying in a process called apoptosis. 

In other words, it's not just a cancer cell's ability to use sugar for energy that makes too much sugar bad for you.  Beyond that, sugar stimulates a cascade of hormones and inflammatory molecules that basically may help cancer cells proliferate and prevent their destruction.