Eating Sugar Makes Cancer Cells Multiply, Study Finds

This isn’t really great news for those of us who enjoy putting away half a cake on their birthday or tearing through four boxes of Thin Mints the day our Girl Scout Cookies arrive. According to Belgian scientists, sugar consumption increases your cancer risk and helps cancer multiply. And why would the Belgians lie about this? It’s not like they’d purposely sabotage their lucrative chocolate and waffle industries.

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The nine-year cancer research study, which was published in the journal Nature Communications, came to this conclusion by observing yeast cells, according to Reader’s Digest.

Their nine-year study, recently published in the journal Nature Communications, observed yeast cells in the lab. Ultimately, they found that the yeast cells’ fermentation process (which mirrors that of cancer cells) actually causes them to multiply and expand.

Unlike non-cancerous cells, which use oxygen to convert glucose into energy for the body, cancer cells get their energy from fermenting sugar—a phenomenon called the “Warburg effect.” The Belgian study revealed that sugar “awakens” existing cancer cells, triggering a more rapid rate of tumor growth.

Apparently, it’s a spare tumor, not a spare tire, that you have to worry about when you eat to much ice cream. Oh, but also, a spare tire as well. Sugar still makes you fat. So it’s important to cut it out of your diet for both weight loss and cancer loss.

There is good news too, however. The discovery that sugar intake may cause cancer means that new forms of cancer treatment could be developed as well.

Previous studies have found that cancer treatments might be able to exploit the cells’ sweet tooth with targeted therapies. While scientists still don’t understand why cancer cells behave like this, these results could help doctors develop new diet strategies for cancer patients going forward.

Once again, life proves that nothing fun is good for you. Not sugar. Not pool noodles. Not the beach. Definitely not alcohol. Nothing.

Whatever. Going to do everything that’s terrible for me anyway.

This post was originally published on June 27, 2018.

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