The Carcinista

How To Grow A Tumor

February 15, 2010 at 10:43 PM (Diet, Treatment) (anti-apoptosis, Anti-Cancer, blood glucose, cancer and sugar, glucose, insulin, insulin-like growth factor, nutrition, nutritionist, obesity, sugar, tumor, tumor growth)

You know how once you finally hear the new song everyone’s been talking about, you start to hear it everywhere – in the mall, in a commercial, in line at the supermarket? Since I started this little anti-white-poisons kick a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been hearing a lot more about food as anti-cancer medication than I ever have. And while I’m not sure that I’m onto something unprecedented and groundbreaking, there are links worth sharing, and I’m wondering why more people don’t.

When I wrote that I was cutting out sugar and white flour, one reader encouraged me to look not only at the sugar content of my food but also its place in the glycemic index, or how quickly the body turns it into sugar, and raises blood glucose levels, once I’ve eaten it. Her argument was based on the book Anti-Cancer, by Dr. Servan-Schreiber, which admittedly I’ve yet to read. (As I said before, I’m a little wary of people espousing radical diets as a way to cure cancer, and having been exposed to some more…um, enthusiastic proponents of various whole-hog lifestyle changes in the past [with little or no effect] I’m one to ask questions first and shoot second.) 

But I’m an open-minded girl, so I looked into the glycemic index and its effects on the body a little further. [WARNING: scientific content to follow!  Bear with me – I’ll try to keep it simple.] Raising the level of glucose (sugar)  in the blood, which you do every time you eat, triggers the release of insulin in your body. Insulin breaks down and stores the sugar in your body for later use as energy. The higher the glycemic index of a particular food, the higher and faster it spikes your blood glucose level after you eat it. [Still with me?] 

An increase in blood glucose also triggers the release of insulin-like growth factors (IGFs), compounds that play a role in the promotion of cell proliferation (more and more cells) and the inhibition of cell apoptosis (a cell’s self-regulating kill switch). In other words, with too much sugar in your blood, not only do some cells grow and multiply much more quickly, their automatic “time to die!” trigger is canceled. 

Sound like anyone we know? 

I’ve gotten my hands on some journal articles that have drawn a link between tumor growth and insulin-like growth factor (IGF). Some of them discuss the mounting evidence between the western, high-animal-protein, high-processed-carbohydrate diet and the increasing risk of cancer.(1) Others go as far as to draw direct links between high blood glucose, insulin and IGF and increases in tumor growth and decreases in tumor cell death: “Epidemiological evidence is accumulating and suggests that the risk of cancers of the colon, pancreas, endometrium, breast and prostate are related to circulating levels of insulin, IGF-1, or both.”(2) 

So the short story is that too much sugar in your diet, and not just the classic “sweet” foods but processed grains, some fruits, basically nearly anything advertised anywhere, will spike your blood glucose, insulin, and IGF. And will fuel the tumors that you know about, if you already have cancer, or tumors you don’t know about, if you haven’t been diagnosed yet. 

I’m just curious why my nutritionist at The Cancer Factory didn’t mention any of this when I met with her last year… You might want to pass this along. 

[Thanks for hanging on ’til the end! I should probably reward you with a joke or something: 

How many cancer patients does it take to change a lightbulb? 

No one knows; they’re too tired to climb the ladder!]

Tell a friend. 

1. Nat Rev Cancer. 2008 Dec;8(12):915-28. Insulin and insulin-like growth factor signalling in neoplasia. Pollak M. Department of Oncology, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada. michael.pollak@mcgill.ca
2. Novartis Found Symp. 2004;262:247-60; discussion 260-68. Nutrition, insulin, IGF-1 metabolism and cancer risk: a summary of epidemiological evidence. Kaaks R. International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France.