I am sure I could ask anyone off the street. Do you know someone that has cancer? Has had treatment to fight it? Has passed away from it? Sadly, the answer will be yes, and the person you asked, may have also been a patient.
For me personally, cancer and its many forms hits too close to home. My first experience was during my first summer job in 1999 where I friended a wonderful lady named Chindi. She was from the UK, and her and I became fast friends. We would talk, have lunch together and chit chat regularly. I remember she told me about her breast cancer and how she was fighting it. The next summer, I went to visit my friend in her department. I remember I was so so excited to see her. She passed away, I was told... from Cancer. You can imagine my shock and my sadness. That was my first experience.
Since then, it has hit very close to my own family a number of times. My grandfather passed away from non hodgkins lymphoma. My first cousin battled breast cancer just last year, and is doing well now, but its still a very scary thing. Just two weeks ago, one of my work colleagues told me about her friend who was recently diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer. I am sure this is the case for many patients, friends and family members.
It is frustrating for me that we GIVE so much to cancer research, and yet... we are no closer to finding a cure. The treatments are still aggressive and not that great. Sure, we have come a long way, even in a decade, but I don't feel that the cancer charities and research is doing the best job that they can. I will never donate to the charities... I would rather donate to the person going through the cancer- the money is simply better spent and appreciated.
So, it was with great interest that I read a recent article on cancer and its connection to Cancer. Sure it not new News...Something that i have known for a long time. But now the research proves it. Sugar feeds cancer cells.
This Belgium Study, published this was published in Nature Communications and focused on how cancer develops. The study found yeast with high levels of the sugar known as glucose overstimulated the same proteins often found mutated inside human tumors, making the cells grow faster.
This is not a new idea. Back in 2008 scientists, Johan Thevelein, Wim Versées and Veerle Janssens started studying the cancer and sugar link and called it the Warburg effect- when tumor cells make energy through a rapid breakdown of glucose not seen in normal cells. That energy allows the tumor to grow.
The scientists confirmed two major facts: 1. Sugar causes tumors to grow 2. Sugar makes cells multiply faster. The scientists believe the sugar produces more of the most common cancer-causing genes, also known as Ras proteins, fueling aggressive tumors.
“Our research reveals how the hyperactive sugar consumption of cancerous cells leads to a vicious cycle of continued stimulation of cancer development and growth. Thus, it is able to explain the correlation between the strength of the Warburg effect and tumor aggressiveness. This link between sugar and cancer has sweeping consequences,” co-author Johan Thevelein said in a statement.
This research does not say that sugar causes cancer. Rather, that if you have cancer being on a low sugar diet is ideal. Sugar can cause cancerous tumors to grow and cancer cells to multiply.
Source: Sugar Can cause Cancerous Cells, study says
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