Does sugar alone feed cancer? The idea comes from real science, but the full picture is more complicated than the headline.
In 1931 Otto Warburg discovered that cancer cells use aerobic glycolysis, and therefore need an enormous amount of glucose just to survive.
We also know that if you do a PET scan and give someone radioactive glucose, the cancer cells do pick up more of it than normal cells do.
It is important to understand, though, that your brain, your immune cells and your red blood cells all need glucose.
If your body does not get enough glucose, it will create it through the mechanisms below.
It is also important to realize that cancer can use various fuel sources. It can use sugar, ketones, fatty acids and proteins.
This happens primarily in epithelial cancers: breast, prostate, colon and lung. In these kinds of cancers the cancer cell can actually use lactate, running normal metabolism, and create plentiful ATP energy. Normal mitochondria do exist in most cancer cells.
This study demonstrated that ketones and lactate caused breast cancer to grow and metastasize more rapidly.
You cannot starve cancer with a specific diet.
A plant-strong, healthy diet. It minimizes sugar, fatty acids and proteins as high fuel sources, without pretending any single food starves a tumor.
If you would like help with your cancer journey, I do private virtual consultations. I would love to help you.
Dr. Brandy
*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
