Sugar intensifies cancer cells; study reveals

A new research showed the relationship between sugar and cancer, and it’s much prevalent that sugar stimulates cancer cells.

A nine year research project showed the ‘Warburg effect’ that is a phenomenon in which cancer cells breaks down sugars quickly and rouses tumor growth. The mechanism causes cancer cells to metabolize sugar. This research can also help in reaching impacts on self-made diets for different cancer patients.

Back in 2008 when this research started, the aim was to observe the Warburg effect. Since every cell derives its energy from the sugars in our food, cancer cells too require this energy. But, their glucose intake is much higher as compared to that of healthy cells. This marks it as one of the most significant feature of cancer cells however, it is still not clear if this effect is the symptom or a cause of cancer.

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The possible solution that comes to one’s mind is to starve the cancer cells of sugar. But, this cannot be done since the normal cells require sugar intake too and there’s no method at present to cut off sugar supply for one cell while keeping it open for the other, reported Science Alert.

Researcher Johan Thevelein said, “Our research reveals how the hyperactive sugar consumption of cancerous cells leads to a vicious cycle of continued stimulation of cancer development and growth. Thus, it is able to explain the correlation between the strength of the Warburg effect and tumor aggressiveness. This link between sugar and cancer has sweeping consequences. Our results provide a foundation for future research in this domain, which can now be performed with a much more precise and relevant focus.”

Yeast cells were used to observe the ‘Ras’ gene family that is present in all animal and human cancer cells. Since, yeast too contains greatly active sugar metabolism and not any extra regulatory processes of mammalian cells, which can cover up the underlying processes.

Publishing their findings in Nature Communications, the results showed that the yeast had an overactive influx of glucose and caused the Ras proteins to activate more. It would then let the cells to cultivate at an accelerated rate.

“The findings are not sufficient to identify the primary cause of the Warburg effect. Further research is needed to find out whether this primary cause is also conserved in yeast cells,” Thevelein concluded.