The Colon Club

For those of us who tend to love sugary things, there is a terrific and easy to understand article by Gary Taubes in the Sunday N.Y. Times magazine (4/17). Although the emphasis of the article is on obesity and weight loss, it explains the role of sugar (especially fructose) in causing certain cancers (including CR cancer); and its role in causing metastatic spread in patients with local tumors. It summarizes the research of Robert Lustig,MD who is perhaps the leading advocate of the fructose-cancer theory. I hope this theory is false, but it is apparently becoming more accepted among physicians in the past few years. YouTube has many talks about this subject also, including a 1+ hour lecture by Dr. Lustig.

Links are in this thread from Hatshepsut: http://csn.cancer.org/node/216327.

They call it the " White SATAN " For a reason.

I am totally on board with this anti-sugar message - especially as far as high fructose corn syrup is concerned. Just to let everyone know all products sold at Trader Joe's are completely free of high fructose corn syrup.

I have recently started meeting with a nutritionist to change the way we eat for the better. She told me that her step mom was diagnosed with colon cancer and her oncologist (at MD Anderson) told that her soda pop habit was definitely a contributing factor to her disease. I do not allow any soda pop in our house anymore and I try to preach to everyone I know not to drink it. I feel strongly that it is one of the worst things anyone could put into their body! I have not had any pop in about 3 years and do not miss it whatsoever. Someday the truth about high fructose corn syrup will come out!

High fructose corn syrup and sugar effectively identical in their biological effects. Once inside of you the end result is the same. That said, I've read so many things in the past year about the possible sugar and cancer connection. My husband's onc told us there wasn't any. But there are a lot of researchers out there who think otherwise. I don't know what to think.

Are any of you avoiding sugar or other sweeteners because of this?

hopeful wrote:High fructose corn syrup and sugar effectively identical in their biological effects. Once inside of you the end result is the same. That said, I've read so many things in the past year about the possible sugar and cancer connection. My husband's onc told us there wasn't any. But there are a lot of researchers out there who think otherwise. I don't know what to think.

Are any of you avoiding sugar or other sweeteners because of this?

Actually HFS and regular sugar are not identical. I don't have the link handy, but they do act differently.

As for the onc and sugar, I would be looking elsewhere for advice on this matter!

This is what I know from personal experience. The last time my tumors were shrinking consistently was the first time I was on folfox. Because of mouth sensitivity I couldn't drink soda because it felt like an explosion in my mouth. I switched to folfiri and once the sensitivities went away I started having major cravings for coke, I drank 2-3a day. I have known for years before dx that soda was very bad to drink and went 2-3 yrs without drinking any, so these cravings shocked me. For the next year of treatment i had very slow progression despite being on chemo. The naturapath that I consulted with said drinking coke was like injecting the tumors other growth hormone. In the beginning of March I finally stopped drinking soda completely, there we're days I felt like I was having withdrawals. The other day I had bought a throwback Pepsi that has real sugar and tried to drink it thinking I would be ok if I only drank 1/4 of it. I only took a few sips because all I could smell was chemicals. I wonder if consuming too much sugar/hfcs helped my tumors progress even while on chemo. I will probably never know, I just hope that now that I have cutback on sugar overall I will have regression.

I don't know if it is true, don't have any science to back it up but have always wondered if HFCS made things more addicting. The body might process them the same but your body craves HFCS more than sugar. Just a personal opinion.

For those of you who try to cut out sugar or artificial sweetners, I use and love Stevia. Its a natural plant grown in south America that is not sugar and has no calories. You can buy it at health food stores, a bottle costs like $12 but it will last for months. You use just a pinch, and I can't tell the differance.

Thanks for this info....my dad has always been a lover of sugar. In Irish terms, that usually means putting many spoons of sugar in your tea, which you drink all day Seriously, though, he has been on Splenda for last few years but when he lost so much weight after dx and resection, the dietician said to include fat and sugar to build up energy and gain some weight so he is back on regular sugar and loves chocolate viscounts (seriously nice chocolate cookies) which he has two after each meal. He doesnt drink soda or anything like that. I dont understand the corn sugar reference. Sugar is sugar here, I dont think we differentiate but must check it out.

thx
d

I am very skeptical that HFCS is a serious contibuting factor to the development of cancer. The major biological response to consumption of large amounts of sugar that may be related to cancer is an insulin spike and increased levels of free insulin growth factor (IGF) in the bloodstream. Higher levels of IGF do seem to encourage cell growth and therefore provide a survival benefit for cells with a large number of IGF receptors, but such a scenario leading to the formation of cancer cells seems unlikely to me. Many mutations must be present already in a cellular system in order to benefit from such a microenvironment. Obviously it is better to keep levels of free IGF low under normal circumstances, and particularly for those with cancer already present. To this end, it is important to keep a low glycemic load rather than focus solely on processed sugars. In my experience as a type I diabetic, baked goods with lots of flour are particularly bad and provoke more of a glycemic response than most sweets/simple sugars in foods.

I have no doubt about the other deleterious effects of HFCS - type II diabetes and atherosclerosis. We discussed Dr. Lustig and HFCS over a year ago:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=11107

My 2 cents,
Jeremy

I'm on the fence about this. I just haven't seen enough evidence. Yes, there are studies, but there also studies going the other way and there are people that don't eat sugar as well as those that do that have lived and died. In any case sugar just isn't that great, it makes you fat, rots your teeth, is bad for insulin levels, etc. I have really decreased my sugar intake and I do feel better. I'm a sweet aholic, so this has not been an easy feat, but I can say the more you don't eat it, the less you crave it. If there's a possibility that sugar can cause cancer or help to spread it, I'll stay away from it.

Comments on some of the replies above:

Dr. Lustig believes that all sugars are NOT the same, although all should be avoided in large amounts. Fructose is worse than the others, because it is processed in the liver and forms fat, leading to a fatty liver. To me, this is disturbing because rectal cancer when it spreads usually forms tumors on the liver. To make matters worse, fructose not only may lead to some cancers, but it also can be a factor when local cancer starts to form mets elsewhere in the body. Since I'm still local ( stage 3 RC), my primary worry at this point is met spread.

On the positive side: I am a worrier; my more rational side realizes that even if sugar is important in cancer formation, many other factors are probably more important and can cancel out the effects of sugars.

Some HFCS trade organization or other (the Corn Refiners Association?) has taken to sprinkling ads in some news articles about diet and health. The ads have a pointer to a "FAQ" with their counter to some of the negative research/opinion about HFCS. Here is a pointer that I just ran across:
http://www.sweetsurprise.com/myths-and-facts/faqs-high-fructose-corn-syrup. I'm just passing this along -- I am personally about equally skeptical of this material and the anti-HFCS propaganda. The most interesting claim in the "FAQ", for me, is that HFCS and ordinary table sugar have nearly the same amount of fructose.

PGLGreg wrote:Some HFCS trade organization or other (the Corn Refiners Association?) has taken to sprinkling ads in some news articles about diet and health. The ads have a pointer to a "FAQ" with their counter to some of the negative research/opinion about HFCS. Here is a pointer that I just ran across:
http://www.sweetsurprise.com/myths-and-facts/faqs-high-fructose-corn-syrup. I'm just passing this along -- I am personally about equally skeptical of this material and the anti-HFCS propaganda. The most interesting claim in the "FAQ", for me, is that HFCS and ordinary table sugar have nearly the same amount of fructose.

Agreed, they both have about the same amount of fructose which is processed in the liver. I consider sugar and HFCS equally bad.

I think maybe they should both be avoided. If nothing else, it's good for keeping your weight in line. And we'd probably get more nutrition without all the excess calories.