America was bought and sold off the profits from the Trans Atlantic sugar trade. No wonder though, have you had a hit of sucrose lately. Everyone loves sugar primarily because so many bodily functions can depend on sugar for sustenance. For example, your brain prefers sugar for fuel, and after an intense workout, your muscles can use up sugar pretty efficiently.
But there is very serious bad side to sugar. Many researchers are observing that sugar may have a connection to cancer cell formation and growth.
Now that sounds pretty scary, but no dietitians and nutritionists don’t want you to avoid sugar all together:
“Your body’s cells use sugar to keep your vital organs functioning,” says Clare McKindley, clinical dietitian at MD Anderson’s Cancer Prevention Center. “But too much daily sugar can cause weight gain. And, unhealthy weight gain and a lack of exercise can increase your cancer risks.”
Considering that your body can’t utilize sugar all that well if it’s not exercising often enough to burn sugar as fuel, eating loads of sugar while sitting for long periods of time probably can contribute to some of the toxic effects of sugar.
Irredeemably, sugar can also help feed cancer cell growth. According to registered dietician Patrick Quillin, it confused him “why the simple concept ‘sugar feeds cancer’ can be so dramatically overlooked.”
In a human study, 10 healthy people were assessed for fasting blood-glucose levels and the phagocytic index of neutrophils, which measures immune-cell ability to envelop and destroy invaders such as cancer. Eating 100 g carbohydrates from glucose, sucrose, honey and orange juice all significantly decreased the capacity of neutrophils to engulf bacteria. Starch did not have this effect.
A four-year study at the National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection in the Netherlands compared 111 biliary tract cancer patients with 480 controls. Cancer risk associated with the intake of sugars, independent of other energy sources, more than doubled for the cancer patients. Furthermore, an epidemiological study in 21 modern countries that keep track of morbidity and mortality (Europe, North America, Japan and others) revealed that sugar intake is a strong risk factor that contributes to higher breast cancer rates, particularly in older women.
Simply put, sugar can cause inflammation that leads to cancer growth, and then in some sick, twisted game, sugar can also feed cancer cells growth.
So, how much sugar is safe to eat? Women should have no more than six teaspoons per day (25 grams), and men should have no more than nine teaspoons per day (37 grams), says the American Heart Association. This equals to about 100 calories for women and 150 for men.
Sugar should be monitored as closely as possible. Who wants to even play with possibility of cancer or with the confirmed issues sugar causes like obesity and diabetes? I don’t.
