Does it cause cancer? Does sugar feed cancer cells, making them grow more aggressively? And how does the sugar we consume through food and drink affect our health, and what can be done about this?
In this post we’re taking a long hard look at sugar.
We’ll focus specifically on sugar and cancer, busting some myths and covering what researchers are studying in the hopes of finding new ways to treat people with cancer.
And we’ll cover why the amount of sugar in our diets is cause for concern. A high-sugar diet can be bad news when it comes to cancer risk, but not for the reasons that often appear in the headlines.
But first the basics, what our bodies need sugar for and where it comes from in our diet.
Search for sugar and cancer on the internet and it doesn’t take long to find alarming warnings that sugar is the “white death” and “cancer’s favourite food”.
But this idea that sugar is responsible for kick-starting or fuelling a cancer’s growth is an over-simplification of some complicated biology. Let’s start with what sugar actually is.
Sugar comes in many different forms. The simplest form is just as a single molecule, such as glucose and fructose. These molecules of simple sugars can also stick together, either in pairs or as longer chains of molecules. All of these combinations of molecules are carbohydrates, and are our body’s main source of energy.
The form of sugar most of us will be familiar with is table sugar, which is a simple sugar that dissolves in water and gives things a sweet taste. Its proper name is sucrose, and it’s made up of crystals of glucose and fructose. Table sugar is refined, meaning it’s been processed to extract it from a natural source (usually sugar beet). Unprocessed foods can be high in simple sugars too, for example honey (also made mostly of glucose and fructose) is nearly pure sugar.
As chains of sugar get longer, they lose their sweet taste and won’t dissolve in water anymore. These chains are called polysaccharides and form a large component of starchy foods. Starchy foods such as rice, bread, pasta and vegetables like potatoes might not taste sweet, but they are high in carbohydrate too.
Sugar, in some form, is in many things we eat. And this is good, because our bodies rely heavily on it to work.
Nearly every single part of our body is made of living cells. And it’s these cells that help us see, breathe, feel, think and much more.
While their jobs in the body may differ, one thing all these cells have in common is that they need energy to survive and perform their duties.
Cells somehow need to turn nutrients in our diet into a form of energy that they can use, called ATP. It would take a long time to explain this (if you’re interested you might want to read more), but simplistically the process starts with glucose.
Glucose is the basic fuel that powers every single one of our cells. If we eat or drink things that are high in glucose, such as fizzy drinks, the glucose gets absorbed straight into our blood ready for our cells to use. If a starchy food, such as pasta, is on the menu, the enzymes in our saliva and digestive juices break it down and convert it into glucose. And if for some reason there’s no carbohydrate in our diet, cells can turn fat and protein into glucose as a last resort, because they need glucose to survive.
It’s here that sugar and cancer start to collide, because cancer is a disease of cells.
Cancer cells usually grow quickly, multiplying at a fast rate, which takes a lot of energy. This means they need lots of glucose. Cancer cells also need lots of other nutrients too, such as amino acids and fats; it’s not just sugar they crave.
Here’s where the myth that sugar fuels cancer was born: if cancer cells need lots of glucose, then cutting sugar out of our diet must help stop cancer growing, and could even stop it developing in the first place. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. All our healthy cells need glucose too, and there’s no way of telling our bodies to let healthy cells have the glucose they need, but not give it to cancer cells.
There’s no evidence that following a “sugar-free” diet lowers the risk of getting cancer, or boosts the chances of surviving if you are diagnosed.