It puzzles me why the simple concept "sugar feeds cancer" can be so dramatically overlooked as part of a comprehensive cancer treatment plan.
Of the 4 million cancer patients being treated in America today,
hardly any are
offered any scientifically guided nutrition therapy beyond being told
to "just
eat good foods." Most patients I work with arrive with a complete
lack of nutritional
advice. I believe many cancer patients would have a major improvement
in their
outcome if they controlled the supply of cancer's preferred fuel,
glucose. By
slowing the cancer's growth, patients allow their immune systems and
medical
debulking therapies--chemotherapy, radiation and surgery to reduce the
bulk of
the tumor mass--to catch up to the disease. Controlling one's
blood-glucose
levels through diet, supplements, exercise, meditation and
prescription drugs
when necessary can be one of the most crucial components to a cancer
recovery
program. The sound bite--sugar feeds cancer--is simple. The
explanation is
a little more complex.
The 1931 Nobel laureate in medicine, German Otto Warburg, Ph.D., first
discovered
that cancer
cells have a fundamentally different energy metabolism compared to
healthy cells.
The crux of his Nobel thesis was that malignant tumors frequently
exhibit an
increase in anaerobic glycolysis - - a process whereby glucose is used
as a fuel
by cancer cells with lactic acid as an anaerobic byproduct - -
compared to normal
tissues.
The large amount of lactic acid produced by this fermentation of
glucose from
cancer cells is then transported to the liver. This conversion of
glucose to
lactate generates a lower, more acidic pH in cancerous tissues as well
as overall
physical fatigue from lactic acid buildup. Thus, larger tumors tend
to exhibit
a more acidic pH.4
This inefficient pathway for energy metabolism yields only 2 moles of
adenosine
triphosphate (ATP) energy per mole of glucose, compared to 38 moles of
ATP in
the complete aerobic oxidation of glucose. By extracting only about 5
percent
(2 vs. 38 moles of ATP) of the available energy in the food supply and
the body's
calorie stores, the cancer is "wasting" energy, and the patient
becomes tired
and undernourished. This vicious cycle increases body wasting.
It is one reason why 40 percent of cancer patients die from
malnutrition, or
cachexia. Hence, cancer therapies should encompass regulating
blood-glucose
levels via diet, supplements, non-oral solutions for cachectic
patients who lose
their appetite, medication, exercise, gradual weight loss and stress
reduction.
Professional guidance and patient self-discipline are crucial at this
point
in the cancer process. The quest is not to eliminate sugars or
carbohydrates
from the diet but rather to control blood glucose within a narrow
range to help
starve the cancer and bolster immune function.
The glycemic index is a measure of how a given food affects
blood-glucose levels,
with each food assigned a numbered rating. The lower the rating, the
slower
the digestion and absorption process, which provides a healthier, more
gradual
infusion of sugars into the bloodstream. Conversely, a high rating
means blood-glucose
levels are increased quickly, which stimulates the pancreas to secrete
insulin
to drop blood-sugar levels. This rapid fluctuation of blood-sugar
levels is
unhealthy because of the stress it places on the body
Sugar in the Body and Diet
Sugar is a generic term used to identify simple carbohydrates, which
includes
monosaccharides such as fructose, glucose and galactose; and
disaccharides such
as maltose and sucrose (white table sugar). Think of these sugars as
different-shaped
bricks in a wall. When fructose is the primary monosaccharide brick
in the wall,
the glycemic index registers as healthier, since this simple sugar is
slowly
absorbed in the gut, then converted to glucose in the liver. This
makes for
"time-release foods," which offer a more gradual rise and fall in
blood-glucose
levels. If glucose is the primary monosaccharide brick in the wall,
the glycemic
index will be higher and less healthy for the individual. As the
brick wall
is torn apart in digestion, the glucose is pumped across the
intestinal wall
directly into the bloodstream, rapidly raising blood-glucose levels.
In other
words, there is a "window of efficacy" for glucose in the blood:
levels too low
make one feel lethargic and can create clinical hypoglycemia; levels
too high
start creating the rippling effect of diabetic health problems.
The 1997 American Diabetes Association blood-glucose standards
consider 126 mg
glucose/dL blood or greater to be diabetic; 111125 mg/dL is impaired
glucose
tolerance and less than 110 mg/dL is considered normal. Meanwhile,
the Paleolithic
diet of our ancestors, which consisted of lean meats, vegetables and
small amounts
of whole grains, nuts, seeds and fruits, is estimated to have
generated blood
glucose levels between 60 and 90 mg/dL.
Obviously, today's high-sugar diets are having unhealthy effects as
far as blood-sugar
is concerned. Excess blood glucose may initiate yeast overgrowth,
blood vessel
deterioration, heart disease and other health conditions.
Understanding and using the glycemic index is an important aspect of
diet modification
for cancer patients. However, there is also evidence that sugars may
feed cancer
more efficiently than starches (comprised of long chains of simple
sugars), making
the index slightly misleading. A study of rats fed diets with equal
calories
from sugars and starches, for example, found the animals on the
high-sugar diet
developed more cases of breast cancer.
The glycemic index is a useful tool in guiding the cancer patient
toward a healthier
diet, but it is not infallible. By using the glycemic index alone,
one could
be led to thinking a cup of white sugar is healthier than a baked
potato. This
is because the glycemic index rating of a sugary food may be lower
than that
of a starchy food. To be safe, I recommend less fruit, more
vegetables, and
little to no refined sugars in the diet of cancer patients.
What the Literature Says
A mouse model of human breast cancer demonstrated that tumors are
sensitive to
blood-glucose levels. Sixty-eight mice were injected with an
aggressive strain
of breast cancer, then fed diets to induce either high blood-sugar
(hyperglycemia),
normoglycemia or low blood-sugar
(hypoglycemia). There was a dose-dependent response in which the
lower the blood
glucose, the greater the survival rate. After 70 days, 8 of 24
hyperglycemic
mice survived compared to 16 of 24 normoglycemic and 19 of 20
hypoglycemic.
This suggests that regulating sugar intake is key to slowing breast
tumor growth.
In a human study, 10 healthy people were assessed for fasting
blood-glucose levels
and the phagocytic index of neutrophils, which measures immune-cell
ability to
envelop and destroy invaders such as cancer. Eating 100 g
carbohydrates from
glucose, sucrose, honey and orange
juice all significantly decreased the capacity of neutrophils to
engulf bacteria.
Starch did not have this effect.
A four-year study at the National Institute of Public Health and
Environmental
Protection in the Netherlands compared 111 biliary tract cancer
patients with
480 controls. Cancer risk associated with the intake of sugars,
independent
of other energy sources, more than doubled for the cancer patients.
Furthermore, an epidemiological study in 21 modern countries that keep
track
of morbidity and mortality (Europe, North America, Japan and others)
revealed
that sugar intake is a strong risk factor that contributes to higher
breast cancer
rates, particularly in older women.
Limiting sugar consumption may not be the only line of defense. In
fact, an interesting
botanical extract from the avocado plant (Persea americana) is showing
promise
as a new cancer adjunct. When a purified avocado extract called
mannoheptulose
was added to a number of tumor cell lines tested in vitro by
researchers in the
Department of Biochemistry at Oxford University in Britain, they found
it inhibited
tumor cell glucose uptake by 25 to 75 percent, and it inhibited the
enzyme glucokinase
responsible for glycolysis. It also inhibited the growth rate of the
cultured
tumor cell lines. The same researchers gave lab animals a 1.7 mg/g
body weight
dose of mannoheptulose for five days; it reduced tumors by 65 to 79
percent.
Based on these studies, there is good reason to believe that avocado
extract
could help cancer patients by limiting glucose to the tumor cells.
Since cancer cells derive most of their energy from anaerobic
glycolysis, Joseph
Gold, M.D., director of the Syracuse (N.Y.) Cancer Research Institute
and former
U.S. Air Force research physician, surmised that a chemical called
hydrazine
sulfate, used in rocket fuel, could inhibit the excessive
gluconeogenesis (making
sugar from amino acids) that occurs in cachectic cancer patients.
Gold's work
demonstrated hydrazine sulfate's ability to slow and reverse cachexia
in advanced
cancer patients. A placebo-controlled trial followed 101 cancer
patients taking
either 6 mg hydrazine sulfate three times/day or placebo. After one
month, 83
percent of hydrazine sulfate patients increased their weight, compared
to 53
percent on placebo.15 A similar study by the same principal
researchers, partly
funded by the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., followed 65
patients.
Those who took hydrazine sulfate and were in good physical condition
before the
study began lived an average of 17 weeks longer.
The medical establishment may be missing the connection between sugar
and its
role in tumorigenesis. Consider the million-dollar positive emission
tomography
device, or PET scan, regarded as one of the ultimate cancer-detection
tools.
PET scans use radioactively labeled glucose to detect sugar-hungry
tumor cells.
PET scans are used to plot the progress of cancer patients and to
assess whether
present protocols are effective.
In Europe, the "sugar feeds cancer" concept is so well accepted that
oncologists,
or cancer doctors, use the Systemic Cancer Multistep Therapy (SCMT)
protocol.
Conceived by Manfred von Ardenne in Germany in 1965, SCMT entails
injecting patients
with glucose to increase blood-glucose concentrations. This lowers pH
values
in cancer tissues via lactic acid formation. In turn, this intensifies
the thermal
sensitivity of the malignant tumors and also induces rapid growth of
the cancer.
Patients are then given whole-body hyperthermia (42 C core
temperature) to further
stress the cancer cells, followed by chemotherapy or radiation.19 SCMT
was tested
on 103 patients with metastasized cancer or recurrent primary tumors
in a clinical phase-I study at the Von Ardenne Institute of Applied Medical Research
in Dresden,
Germany. Five-year survival rates in SCMT-treated patients increased
by 25 to
50 percent, and the complete rate of tumor regression increased by 30
to 50 percent.
The protocol induces rapid growth of the cancer, then treats the tumor
with toxic
therapies for a dramatic improvement in outcome.
The irrefutable role of glucose in the growth and metastasis of cancer
cells
can enhance many therapies. Some of these include diets designed with
the glycemic
index in mind to regulate increases in blood glucose, hence
selectively starving
the cancer cells; low-glucose TPN solutions; avocado extract to
inhibit glucose
uptake in cancer cells; hydrazine sulfate to inhibit gluconeogenesis
in cancer
cells; and SCMT.
A female patient in her 50s, with lung cancer, came to our clinic,
having been
given a death sentence by her Florida oncologist. She was cooperative
and understood
the connection between nutrition and cancer. She changed her diet
considerably,
leaving out 90 percent of the sugar she used to eat. She found that
wheat bread
and oat cereal now had their own wild sweetness, even without added
sugar. With
appropriately restrained medical therapy--including high-dose
radiation targeted
to tumor sites and fractionated chemotherapy, a technique that
distributes the
normal one large weekly chemo dose into a 60-hour infusion lasting
days--a good
attitude and an optimal nutrition program which included Sam's formula (about $8.00 for 90 tablets)
nine times/day, she beat her terminal lung cancer. I saw her last month, five years later and
still disease-free, probably looking better than the doctor who told
her there was no hope.
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