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# Cancer cells thrive on sugar
- URL: https://www.foodconsumer.org/cancer_cells_thrive_on_sugar_0812151231/
- Published: 2015-08-12T13:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-22T16:02:00.000Z
- Description: A Nature Medicine study developed an MRI method that uses injected glucose instead of radioactive tracer to make tumours show up, working from sugar's role in driving cancer growth. The authors suggest even small amounts of glucose may help cancer cells proliferate.
- Author: Food Consumer
- Tags: Food, Nutrition, #vivvo-import

Tuesday Aug 12, 2015 (foodconsumer.org) -- By now, many food consumers might have known for a fact that eating too much fructose or high fructose corn syrup can increase risk of obesity, diabetes mellitus and heart disease. But studies also suggest that another simple sugar called glucose may be dangerous too, at least for those who have developed cancer.

Sugar like glucose boosts the growth of cancer cells and promotes the spreading of cancer tumors, a recent study has confirmed. The study published recently in Nature Medicine was intended to develop a method to detect cancer based on the fact that sugar is the primary driving force behind the cancer growth. 

Conventionally, for a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner to detect a cancer in the body, radioactive material needs to be injected. Radioactive material by itself can initiate and promote cancer development. That is why researchers wanted to develop a safe method for cancer diagnostics.

The researchers at the University College London in the U.K. developed the method that requires an injection of a certain amount of glucose. With this method, cancer tumors were revealed as bright images on the MRI scan.

The study suggests that even a small amount of glucose can have a potential to promote the cancer proliferation.

Glucose is not commonly used as a sweetener in processed food because it does not taste as sweet as fructose or high fructose corn syrup. But this sugar is the main compound found in starch foods such sugar, white flour, sweetened and processed foods and fast food. That is why many would agree that a healthy diet should not contain sugar loaded processed foods and sugar-sweetened beverages.

It has been known for a century that glucose is involved in cancer development as an energy source. Normal cells metabolize glucose completely to release carbon dioxide and energy. But cancer cells use glucose to release lactic acid (a process called fermentation) along with a low amount of energy. That is why cancer patients often feel fatigued. (David Liu)