In a breakthrough discovery, scientists prove how sugar and cancer are interlinked. Read on to know more.
Sugar feeds cancer and obstructs its prevention
HIGHLIGHTS
- Finally proved sugar feeds cancer and makes it difficult to treat it
- This was proved way back in 1920s and dubbed the Warburg effect
- Healthy cells gain energy from sugar which does not happen in this case
In a breakthrough study, scientists finally proved how sugar feeds cancer and makes it difficult to treat the disease. This has been stated in their new research paper which is now being termed as 'breakthrough'. It has been published today and explains how cancerous cells break down sugar rapidly in the body and also does not produce enough energy for the body. This was proved way back in 1920s and dubbed the 'Warburg effect'. Till date, it has not been proved that effect is a symptom of cancer or its cause.
But, another joint research project was carried out by a coalition of Dutch universities which proved that sugar associates with a gene called 'ras' which is an essential element for cancer cells to survive. This further leads to a vicious cycle where the association of sugar with the gene ras traps the cancerous cells and it persistently spreads throughout the body. The Nature Communications holds such findings which describe the effects of the diet of a cancer patient and for people who are non-sufferers; it explains the repercussions of eating too much sugar.
This research dates back in 2008 when it began. It aimed at throwing light on Warburg Effect discovered by a German physicist Otto Warburg in 1920. Dr. Otto discovered that high levels of lactate converted sugar consumption leads to serious health issues in the future. In general, healthy cells gain energy from sugar which does not happen in case of cancer patients.
Dr. Warburg, however, failed to explain this and so have most of the researchers over so many years. This is why the paper gains so much significance in understanding cancer. Researchers also studied yeast which contains the gene 'ras' as cancerous cells.
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