High sugar intake behind increased breast cancer risk

Excessive intake of sugar has always been blamed for causing unhealthy consequences in human beings. Now, a new study has shown that besides being responsible for cavities and a thicker waistline, sugar, especially fructose, could also lead to an increased risk of breast tumours and breast cancer. A research paper published in the journal Cancer Research documents the link between high sugar intake and the growth of tumours and cancer. The paper also describes a possible mechanism that might explain how consuming sugar triggers the growth of cancer, according to West Texas News.The study, using mice, found that refined sugar and fructose, in particular, had an effect on a metabolic process called 12-LOX, which enable cancer cells to spread. While humans need the type of sugar called glucose to help their bodies generate energy, refined sugars and fructose affect the body differently, in an adverse manner, according to the research paper. According to a cdanews.com report by John Samuels, the study bolsters previous research, which suggests that at least two-thirds of all cancer cases are preventable, in that they are caused by lifestyle choices like smoking or otherwise using tobacco, lack of exercise, and an unhealthy diet.The results of the study, with the mice, according to one of the co-authors, Lorenzo Cohen of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Centre, indicates that what people eat matters to the outcome of their health. In a press release, Cohen said: “We determined that it was specifically fructose, in table sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, ubiquitous within our food system, which was responsible for facilitating lung metastasis and 12-HETE production in breast tumours.”The mice in the study were divided up into four groups, with each group being fed a different diet. The mice in the four groups were fed either diets rich in starch or containing different types of sugar. Mice used were genetically predisposed to developing breast cancer, just like some people are. The researchers who conducted the study discovered that the more sugar that the mice ate, the bigger the tumours they had developed became. This was especially the case in the group of mice fed fructose. The more fructose the mice consumed, the larger their tumours grew, and they developed them faster.By the time they were just six months old, 50 to 58% of the mice in the high-sucrose diet group developed mammary tumours. By contrast, 30% of the mice in the starch-control diet had developed measurable mammary tumours when they were six months old. The researchers also mentioned that the mice fed diets high in sucrose and fructose exhibited more lung metastases than did the mice fed the starch-control diet, UPI reported.According to Cohen, the majority of cancer patients do not die from the primary tumour they develop, but from “metastatic disease.” The incidence of metastatic disease and how rapidly it spreads, according to the results of the study, is linked to the amount of refined sugar like sucrose and fructose that people consume. Another co-author of the study, Dr Peiying Yang, assistant professor of palliative, rehabilitation, and integrative medicine, stated that she and her team of researchers found “it was specifically fructose,” behind the increased risk of development of tumours and breast cancer in the mice.Though, further research is still needed, Yang and Cohen’s study with mice indicates that eating too much refined sugar is detrimental to our health. So, one more reason to cut down on sugar.