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Can Sugar Cause Cancer
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nvomketo, you are up where the scientist are going. There are some people here who consider they know it all and are so far behind the observations, so much so, it is frightening, terefying. The science behind cell activity is so very, very intersting I become so enthrawled, its so much more intersting to me than any novella. ncib/gov.. nature and all the other accademic science sites, so much excelent reading.
Wild speculation in an area outside of your expertise isn't "where the scientist is going", it's more like where the pulp sci-fi writer is going.17 -
I think people misunderstand what cancer is. Cancer isn't a disease in the traditional sense that one pictures with some foreign infectious agent, it is your own cells malfunctioning. Your bodies immune system typically still recognizes them as "self" and does not attack them and anything that "feeds" cancer cells is also something that "feeds" any of your other normal cells, things you require. If you avoided sugar entirely somehow cancer wouldn't die anymore than any of your other cells would die. If you literally restricted your diet enough to kill cancer cells, it would also kill your healthy cells. Therefore there is no way to eradicate cancer with a diet.
At the risk of oversimplifying here is a simple way to think about cancer. Healthy cells have two primary mechanisms to restrict their growth and expansion. First is contact inhibition, where cells can sense they are next to another cell at which point they stop growing and dividing. The other is telomeres and telomerases where there are sections of DNA at the end of chromosomes that shorten each time a cell divides and when they get short enough the cell can no longer divide. These mechanisms prevent rampant uncontrolled cellular growth. Healthy cells won't grow over eachother (contact inhibited) and they won't grown and reproduce indefinitely (telomeres).
These mechanism, like all biological mechanisms, are encoded in DNA. DNA can acquire mutations, either through miscopying during replication or from outside influences such as radiation or certain chemicals. These mutations occur generally speaking at random and most of the time they will either be innocuous or lead to the cells death. Now and again though mutations can occur in those growth check mechanisms of contact inhibition and telomerases). If a cell accumulates the "right" mutations that essentially deactivate those regulatory mechanisms you end up with a cancer cell. This can happen to anyone at anytime, the things that increase your chance of cancer are basically already having some of these mutations, having mutations that increase the rate that your DNA accumulates mutations, or areas of your body where cells are constantly being sloughed off and destroyed (skin, breast tissue, colon etc) and having to be replaced therefore increasing the amount DNA has to be copied thus increasing the chance for one of these mutations. Having external factors damage your DNA like UV radiation increases your chances of cancer simply by increasing the amount of mutations that occur in your DNA and everytime you get a mutation you are rolling those dice.
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Sorry, John Slater, If you listened to "the life scientific" UK, BBC4 9-00 am. this morning, you might well have learned something.18
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Aaron_K123 wrote: »I think people misunderstand what cancer is. Cancer isn't a disease in the traditional sense that one pictures with some foreign infectious agent, it is your own cells malfunctioning. Your bodies immune system typically still recognizes them as "self" and does not attack them and anything that "feeds" cancer cells is also something that "feeds" any of your other normal cells, things you require. If you avoided sugar entirely somehow cancer wouldn't die anymore than any of your other cells would die. If you literally restricted your diet enough to kill cancer cells, it would also kill your healthy cells. Therefore there is no way to eradicate cancer with a diet.
At the risk of oversimplifying here is a simple way to think about cancer. Healthy cells have two primary mechanisms to restrict their growth and expansion. First is contact inhibition, where cells can sense they are next to another cell at which point they stop growing and dividing. The other is telomeres and telomerases where there are sections of DNA at the end of chromosomes that shorten each time a cell divides and when they get short enough the cell can no longer divide. These mechanisms prevent rampant uncontrolled cellular growth. Healthy cells won't grow over eachother (contact inhibited) and they won't grown and reproduce indefinitely (telomeres).
These mechanism, like all biological mechanisms, are encoded in DNA. DNA can acquire mutations, either through miscopying during replication or from outside influences such as radiation or certain chemicals. These mutations occur generally speaking at random and most of the time they will either be innocuous or lead to the cells death. Now and again though mutations can occur in those growth check mechanisms of contact inhibition and telomerases). If a cell accumulates the "right" mutations that essentially deactivate those regulatory mechanisms you end up with a cancer cell. This can happen to anyone at anytime, the things that increase your chance of cancer are basically already having some of these mutations, having mutations that increase the rate that your DNA accumulates mutations, or areas of your body where cells are constantly being sloughed off and destroyed (skin, breast tissue, colon etc) and having to be replaced therefore increasing the amount DNA has to be copied thus increasing the chance for one of these mutations. Having external factors damage your DNA like UV radiation increases your chances of cancer simply by increasing the amount of mutations that occur in your DNA and everytime you get a mutation you are rolling those dice.
I really enjoyed this explanation--thank you again Aaron for taking the time to clarify things.5 -
Everything is on the table.
- Caloric restriction for life - I do it, consequence is being very thin...if you want to entertain breast cancer, be overweight.
- Minimum intake red meat - I eat 4oz twice a week
- Crazy amount of antioxydants - I did a 180deg in nutrition 3 years ago. Beets and broccoli - a lot, I mean a LOT.
- 30-45m of sustained exercise 4-5x a week - we have a Labrador in us, it needs to do a lot of things. don't leave out resistance training.
- Keep out alcohol - well, I failed on that one.
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It is so sad many countries in the western world do not have access to proper scientific information from their key media. In law our main channels are required to hold their factual content tight to the science. Its one way we are blessed here in the UK.
ETA - so its above my pay grade as a cancer survivor not to take an intelligent interest in something which can return? I agree with saintor1, doing all those things would improve your statistical chances. We are human and my secondary situation, achieving antioxidants from diet is precluded because most come from foods heavily laced with salicylate which is more toxic to me than the majority of the population, speculation alert, which could be why I succumbed in the first place.8 -
http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2017/05/15/sugar-and-cancer-what-you-need-to-know/
In short, no. But being overweight can be a contributing factor.
You know what is a big factor in whether you get cancer, luck. We've all heard of people who smoke all their lives and don't get lung cancer. They have been lucky. At the same time there are people who have never smoked in their life, and they get lung cancer, unlucky. Sometimes that luck can be a a two edged sword though. Would you say a lifelong smoker who died by being hit by a bus was lucky because they never got cancer? Probably not, and yet five minutes previously you probably would have. What about if you knew that the next day a cancer would have developed. Would then it have been lucky that they got hit by a bus before that happened?
Now what I'm not saying is "well don't worry about it because you'll die of something eventually" (even though I know it sounds like that). What I'm saying is that sometimes, even with doing everything "right", luck works against us. If eating a couple of cookies makes you happy, and keeps you in check with regards to your weight, then eat cookies.4 -
Anaerobic conditions at a cellular level contribute to cancers growth. The body has a system which is supposed to eliminate these early problematic cells, it does not always work particularly in the elderly, like myself now.
Persons with excess sugar in their diet are more inclined towards nurturing cancerous growths because of the tendency to have anaerobic conditions at a cellular level. I realise most of you who woo my information will never have any experience cancer or chronic health conditions, thankfully. When my cancer returns it will be considered to have metastasised, I had the primary removed etc, 18 years ago. With age the instances of cancers increase.
Back in the 1960's it was bad fats, all fats, which were the cause of heart problems, obesity, cancers and all the other chronic ailments, one had to be thick if you did not loose weight! Not, for a small proportion of the population who's situation is more complicate. There is no one size fits all, to this. Life would be really boring were we all the same. Now in the 21st C, we know more, fats are seen as a necessary component in hormone production so a good balanced diet is king. Even now we know too little of how the body works as a whole, we do not know all the intricacies of every organ in the body. Eating less and moving more does not work for all.
I know genetics play a huge part, as do epigenetics, (the actual switches one needs to avoid triggering because we have not found the off switch in the petri dish, yet), diet and all has its place. If one knows one has or probably has a predisposition to cancers, received through familial knowledge, I would think it would be prudent to attempt to tip the scales in your favour. I know the pain I had with my cancer and I really do not want it on my death bed, thank you. It was hard enough the first time round.
I am grateful for BBC programs like, The life Scientific, Inside Science, Inside Health, a sample of the radio output over here. Other factual scientific programmes are to be found on the Bb tv channels, Channel 4, and Itv, We are so fortunate to have this output.
I'm out of here now. Please think on what I have written. I really would rather the population had fewer cancer case numbers in the future. Hugs everyone.12 -
http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2017/05/15/sugar-and-cancer-what-you-need-to-know/
In short, no. But being overweight can be a contributing factor.
You know what is a big factor in whether you get cancer, luck. We've all heard of people who smoke all their lives and don't get lung cancer. They have been lucky. At the same time there are people who have never smoked in their life, and they get lung cancer, unlucky. Sometimes that luck can be a a two edged sword though. Would you say a lifelong smoker who died by being hit by a bus was lucky because they never got cancer? Probably not, and yet five minutes previously you probably would have. What about if you knew that the next day a cancer would have developed. Would then it have been lucky that they got hit by a bus before that happened?
Now what I'm not saying is "well don't worry about it because you'll die of something eventually" (even though I know it sounds like that). What I'm saying is that sometimes, even with doing everything "right", luck works against us. If eating a couple of cookies makes you happy, and keeps you in check with regards to your weight, then eat cookies.
I understand what you are saying, but it's not quite right. I have a lower likelihood of getting lung cancer by being a non-smoker. Doesn't mean I won't get it, but it's more than just "luck". It's playing with probabilities.3 -
Anaerobic conditions at a cellular level contribute to cancers growth. The body has a system which is supposed to eliminate these early problematic cells, it does not always work particularly in the elderly, like myself now.
Persons with excess sugar in their diet are more inclined towards nurturing cancerous growths because of the tendency to have anaerobic conditions at a cellular level. I realise most of you who woo my information will never have any experience cancer or chronic health conditions, thankfully. When my cancer returns it will be considered to have metastasised, I had the primary removed etc, 18 years ago. With age the instances of cancers increase.
Back in the 1960's it was bad fats, all fats, which were the cause of heart problems, obesity, cancers and all the other chronic ailments, one had to be thick if you did not loose weight! Not, for a small proportion of the population who's situation is more complicate. There is no one size fits all, to this. Life would be really boring were we all the same. Now in the 21st C, we know more, fats are seen as a necessary component in hormone production so a good balanced diet is king. Even now we know too little of how the body works as a whole, we do not know all the intricacies of every organ in the body. Eating less and moving more does not work for all.
I know genetics play a huge part, as do epigenetics, (the actual switches one needs to avoid triggering because we have not found the off switch in the petri dish, yet), diet and all has its place. If one knows one has or probably has a predisposition to cancers, received through familial knowledge, I would think it would be prudent to attempt to tip the scales in your favour. I know the pain I had with my cancer and I really do not want it on my death bed, thank you. It was hard enough the first time round.
I am grateful for BBC programs like, The life Scientific, Inside Science, Inside Health, a sample of the radio output over here. Other factual scientific programmes are to be found on the Bb tv channels, Channel 4, and Itv, We are so fortunate to have this output.
I'm out of here now. Please think on what I have written. I really would rather the population had fewer cancer case numbers in the future. Hugs everyone.
I'd never heard these programs before. They sound excellent. Thanks for sharing it.3
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