Simple sugars found to help body fight cancer.

[Denzie]

Please note this is simple sugars not refined sugars. Your heart, brain and t-cells all need simple sugars to function properly.

medicalnewstoday.com/releas...

[scifiknitter Blogger]

Fascinating! Thanks, Denzie.

[JeanE41]

This is very interesting. I have chosen to limit my intake of sugar since cancer cells seem to thrive on it. That is why pet scans work. A sugar solution has radioactive isotopes in it and is taken up by the cancer cells. The fact that T cells work best with sugar and dendrites work best when starved of sugar is most interesting. It suggests that moderation, as in all things, is best. Thank you for sharing this information.

[Denzie Moderator Volunteer in reply to JeanE41]

I thought that was interesting as well. I always recommend getting sugar/sucrose from nature whenever possible and avoiding most refined sugars (I'm not ready to give up my ice cream).

[JeanE41 in reply to Denzie]

I can't give up my dark chocolate. We must have some indulgences.

[jpoehlmann in reply to JeanE41]

It is important to keep your sugar intake at moderate levels, certainly, for general health -- but "limiting" intake could mean very different things to different people... The glucose your body needs is going to come from the best available source, whether that is a more complex or a refined sugar or a carbohydrate or a protein, and if you have limited too much, your body will break down muscle to make glucose, leading to weight loss. Before you limit your sugar intake too much, talk to your oncologist about it. You cannot "starve" your cancer and it is actually bad for you to try.

[Denzie Moderator Volunteer in reply to jpoehlmann]

This come up often and you do a great job explaining why it's not a good idea to starve a cancer by cutting out sugars. At an educational seminar (oncologist from U Mich) I asked if denying the body sugars could contribute to cachexia and was told that it certainly could.

[JeanE41 in reply to jpoehlmann]

Thank you for your input. I am trying to get most of my sugar from fruits and veges. I have cut out most "processed foods" and bread. Having to eat gluten free and dairy free, most of the products made are extremely high in carbs. I do eat some rice, potatoes or sweet potatoes and of course my dark chocolate as well as plenty of protein. My oncologist is fine with what I'm doing. Sorry if I misled you. I truly appreciate your response.

[Denzie Moderator Volunteer in reply to JeanE41]

Honestly, I did not feel misled. It's important we understand the difference between natural and refined sugars. Also, if every cure that worked in mice or a Petri dish worked on people we wouldn't have so many cancers.

[jpoehlmann in reply to JeanE41]

I certainly didn't feel mislead by any of this. I just feel it is important that anyone reading these comments has a full understanding of the issues -- sugar intake is wildly misunderstood (and misrepresented) by many people on the Internet...

[MeHilly1]

There are a lot of interesting links on that page including one on the use of cannabinoids and chemo.

[Denzie Moderator Volunteer in reply to MeHilly1]

Yes. That one stood out. Keep on educating yourself and an open mind!

[jpoehlmann]

It seems that a lot of people are assuming this study was based on actual human tests, which it does not appear is the case. There were studies done with cultured cells and there were experiments on mice. The conclusions are that this the dendrites may *naturally* be starved of glucose during an immune response due to competitive uptake by T cells, and that this mechanism may at some point be used in a potential new therapy, but it is more broadly interesting simply because it offers new and greater understanding of some important mechanisms.

Of note, there is this statement buried deep in the study: "Systemic levels of glucose are tightly controlled and glucose levels do not drop to low levels even in the starved state; this is not surprising given the importance of glucose as a cellular fuel."

This is important for those people who are reading the article linked above or any of the many items that are bound to appear online claiming that this study somehow indicates a new reason to alter diet. Our bodies need sugar and they don't really care where it comes from. All forms of sugar break down in the digestive process, forming glucose to feed our cells, and when we don't eat enough of it, our bodies begin to break down our own muscle, contributing to weight loss and potentially lower immune function. Before attempting ANY "therapeutic" diets, always consult with your oncologist. Almost all the time, you will find that the recommendation is for a "balanced" diet, one that includes sugars and a lot of protein.

This study is very interesting on a lot of levels, but it needs to be looked at in context.

[jpoehlmann in reply to jpoehlmann]

nature.com/articles/ncomms1...

[Denzie Moderator Volunteer in reply to jpoehlmann]

Thank you. You've done an excellent job explaining how the body breaks down muscle and other tissues to create the sugars it needs to function. The cancers cells to and they are just a bit more hungry.

The sugar question comes up frequently in boards like this, cancer educational seminars and where I volunteer with patients. My purpose in sharing this article was to inform that sugars are not necessarily the bad food people think and that simple sugars are better than processed.

In the future I will endeavor to make the point about whether it is a human or mouse experiment more clear into intro.

Fwiw, 6.5 years ago when I was going through chemo and radiation, I ate a hot fudge sundae every day. I called it my ice cream therapy.

[jpoehlmann in reply to Denzie]

Ice cream therapy is exceptionally important and also highly misunderstood outside of the medical and academic communities. If more people could embrace the real science behind ice cream, I think we would all be better off.

As for the mouse factor, the article you linked from Medical News Today was the real culprit -- they seem to forget that they write at a layman level but tend to gloss over the parameters of the actual study (which is not easy to read). Their version made no attempt to differentiate, which is one of the reasons I cautioned that it will likely be picked up as a "source" to "prove" things that have nothing to do with the study (as is often the case with websites promising pseudo-scientific "cures" for cancer).

Still...

None of the information there is as important as the unfairly maligned hot fudge.

[scifiknitter Blogger in reply to jpoehlmann]

Great points throughout this discussion, including the value of hot fudge therapy. For me it was banana split therapy when I was on an experimental drug that caused weight loss due to high blood sugar levels. (Note: a good quality vanilla ice cream is one of the lowest sugar desserts around.) The most important thing is to maintain as high a level of overall health as possible, and a good diet that is appropriate for current circumstances is helpful in doing that.

The ability of the body to maintain stasis in certain essential ways regardless of our efforts to change the balance, such as glucose and pH levels, is quite amazing.