For those who don't know the amazing Kate Murphy, she is a 22-year colon cancer survivor and amazing advocate who literally spends every day educating others. There is nobody I know who is better educated about colorectal cancer.
Hannah
FROM KATE:
It is a myth that eating sugar contributes to the development or growth of cancer. All food eventually ends up as glucose, which is a sugar, and is used in cells to make energy.
Cancer cells are fast-growing and, as a result, take up and use more glucose than normal cells. This greediness for the sugar glucose is one reason that PET scans work to identify potential cancer by looking for high levels radioactively-marked glucose.
However, you can't keep glucose from going to cancer cells or normal cells. And you wouldn't want to because without glucose your brain, heart, lungs, and other critical body parts wouldn't work. Starving the brain of its sugar (glucose) would quickly produce confusion and eventually death.
No matter what you eat -- cookies, spoonfuls of sugar, milk, fruit, broccoli, ketchup, chocolate bars -- the carbohydrates (sugars and starches) will be converted to glucose for use in the body.
Excess sugar can contribute to obesity which is a risk factor for the development of colorectal cancer, but shouldn't be a worry for people being treated for cancer who need to keep from losing weight.
The other problem with candy, cookies, cake and other tasty, sugary foods is that if you eat too many, you won't want to eat the fruits, vegetables, and proteins that contain important nutrients.
But avoiding sugar will NOT cure colorectal cancer or keep it from growing.
As far as juicing goes, it is a convenient way to drink fruits and vegetables but doesn't contribute anything more than is already there. You get as much nutrition by eating the whole fruit or veggie. If you are on chemotherapy, you want to be very, very careful of raw fruit or vegetables, even if you wash them well and mash them up in a juicer. Bacteria can linger on skins and make you sick. Most oncologists recommend that people on chemo cook fruits and vegetables.
All of us want to do simple things to increase the chances of recovering from cancer -- but sometimes those things that seem very simple are not effective. Eat what makes you feel good and strong, and don't hesitate to give yourself a sweet treat once in a while.
Kate