Too much sugar – not sugar itself – increases your risk of certain types of cancer, experts say.
Provided
Barbara Intermill
We could avoid about three in ten most common cancers if we changed certain diet and lifestyle habits, say the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research. A good place to start, they recommend eating a balanced diet and staying away from tobacco and excessive alcohol.
What about sugar? Doesn’t that feed cancer cells? It sure does. And it also nourishes healthy cells. Even if we completely avoided all carbohydrates (sugars and starches that break down into sugar), our bodies would use protein in an alternative recipe to make glucose (sugar) to keep our cells energized. It is therefore not true that if we avoid all sugar, we can starve cancer cells to death.
That’s just the beginning of our confusion about sugar and cancer, according to an article in Environmental Nutrition by Registered Nutritionist Karen Collins.
For example, we know from a large study in France that the more “ultra-processed” foods we eat, the higher our risk of cancer. Basically, these are the ones that line the shelves of most convenience stores. They are in a pack and the main ingredients are fat, sugar and salt and not much else.
The confusion, Collins says, is why highly processed foods loaded with sugar increase our risk of cancer. Here are some facts:
