Fructose is the most dangerous type of sugar
As we all do, cancer loves sugar too. A new study has found that cancer loves sugar which means that people who consume high quantities of sugar are at increased risk of cancer.
Lorenzo Cohen from the Anderson Cancer Center of the University of Texas, one of the authors of the study claims that the usual medical practice of telling patients it doesn’t matter what they eat after they have been diagnosed with cancer is wrong.
The study, published in Cancer Research journal brings more evidence that the Western diet high in sugars is another risk factor in many types of cancer. Previous research have shown that about two-thirds of cancers are the result of lifestyle choices such as lack of exercise, unhealthy diet, tobacco use, processed meat and other unhealthy habits.
However, when it comes to sugar things are not that simple since some of nutrients found in sugar are vital for our organism which gets its energy from glucose that is a type of sugar.
Mice trial has shown that the most dangerous type of sugar is fructose, the natural sugar found in most fruits. Fructose affects a pathway of our metabolic system, called 12-LOX, helping the cancerous cells to spread.
According to Cohen most cancer patients are not dying as a result of their primary tumor but as a result of the cancerous cells spreading to other organs, which is also known at metastases.
The mice trial was designed to be as close as possible to humans’ experience. The research team has chosen mice predisposed to breast cancer just as many people are and they fed them similar doses of the usual food of most Americans.
The mice were feed four different diets of which some contained more sugar and others more starch. They used starch as a control ingredient as it has never been associated with a higher risk of cancer. A previous study on humans has shown an association between fructose, glucose and sucrose with breast cancer.
After 6 months of feeding the mice the special diets researchers observed that 30 percent of those eating more starch had breast cancer while of those eating more sucrose 50 percent had breast tumors. Researchers have also observed that as they were fed more sugar, the tumors were growing larger.
The most dangerous sugar has been observed to be fructose. The tumors of the mice getting more fructose were growing faster and larger than those getting more glucose.
These results support previous studies which have shown that fructose is also affecting pancreatic tumors.
In conclusion, as cancer loves sugar, and especially fructose, people are advised to reduce their consumption and drink less fruit juice, despite the myth that they’re as healthy as possible.
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