The Myths about Sugar & Cancer

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

During my treatment, I watched a programme where a well-known TV presenter had written a sugar-free cookery book for her sister, because it was ‘well known that cancer feeds off sugar’.

No-one had told me this! Why hadn’t I been told? Well, I wasn’t eating sugar EVER AGAIN.

The Frosties went straight in the bin. My one cup of tea was now without sugar (I usually have 2), and I didn’t touch coffee, mainly because I don’t really like coffee, but again I needed 2 sugars for it to be bearable.

The peppermints also went in the bin and so would everything else, if my husband hadn’t stopped me and commandeered them for himself. Just because I didn’t want it didn’t mean that he couldn’t.

I pretty much avoided sugar during the rest of my treatment based on this one programme.

At a wellness day, I was surprised to be informed by an oncologist that this is a complete myth and that I could have been doing myself more harm than good. There’s no verified clinical evidence that following a “sugar-free” diet lowers the risk of getting cancer or boosts the chances of surviving it if you are diagnosed.

Ref: Sugar and cancer – what you need to know. Cancer Research UK. 16 Aug. 2023)

How Sugar works…

There is lots of information about carbohydrates, glucose, sugar etc etc, so I have tried to simplify it into layman’s terms so that those of us that don’t have a medical degree can understand.

Refined sugar (the bag we get from the supermarket) is a mixture of soluble carbohydrates.
Carbohydrates are the primary source of energy for the body.
These carbohydrates are broken down into glucose.
The cells in our body use glucose or more correctly glycogen as a source of fuel.
Healthy cells need glycogen.

There is no proven clinical evidence that removing sugar from our diet either before or during chemotherapy improves treatment outcomes. Considered logically, all of our healthy cells need carbohydrates to survive. Chemotherapy as we well know, takes a huge toll on healthy as well as cancerous cells. Therefore, we must be ready to feed the vast majority of healthy cells to support our chemotherapy treatment. There is a more detailed explanation of the mechanisms of absorbing sugars here.

There are many Myths about Sugar & Cancer but obviously don’t overdo the sugar….. none of us want diabetes as well. We’ve got enough on our plate.