Eliminating sugar may seem difficult in a society where sweet foods are found everywhere: soft drinks, cookies, breads and desserts; However, as we understand cancer metabolism more, it is known that several types depend on one particular thing, which is sugar, explains the doctor in molecular biology, Horacio Astudillo de la Vega, president of the Nanopharmacia Group Council.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a US citizen consumes 126 grams of sugar per day, that is, four times more than the recommendations made by nutritionists. In the case of Mexico, it is known that up to 85% of the population exceeds the recommended sugar consumption, according to a study by the Office of Scientific and Technological Information for the Congress of the Union (Incytu).
The WHO recommendation states that the population should not consume more than 10% of sugars in their daily diet; It even recommends a sugar intake of less than 5%, that is, only five small tablespoons daily.
Sugar is like a drug and current generations begin to pay bills for such a sugary diet. The numbers of obesity and diabetes are increasing and this is a reflection of the hypercaloric diets that the majority of the world's population has.
Dr. Astudillo de la Vega said the cancer-sugar relationship had already been described in 1942 by the physiologist Otto Heinrich Warburg in what is now known as “the Warburg effect”, who observed that normal cells metabolize glucose differently from cancer cells A mutated cell has much higher than normal glycolytic rates.
Therefore, Warburg proposed a theory in which the bioenergetic function of mitochondria in the tumor cell is altered; in that theory, he pointed out that cancer is the consequence of an anti-physiological diet (diet based on acidifying and sedentary foods), which earned him the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1931.
Warburg postulated that the change in glucose metabolism is the cause of cancer, an approach that supports the main Nobel Prize hypothesis. This hypothesis highlights that malignant cells typically have a glucose consumption rate up to 200 times higher than a normal cell.
Currently, sugar-rich diets already have visible consequences in overweight and diabetes. But, according to research by Weill Cornell University in New York, excess sugar helps numerous types of cancer develop more quickly.
Studies show that sugar is a signaling pathway for the growth, proliferation and survival of cancer cells.
In this regard, Dr. Horacio Astudillo said that this better understanding of the way in which sugar feeds cancer cells can help to have a new therapeutic approach, since apart from treatments such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery, oncologists They could prescribe a diet to a cancer patient that helps to enhance their personalized treatments.
Finally, Dr. Astudillo said that the increase in cancer can only be stopped if people adopt healthy lifestyles, such as exercising and eating well, so he recommended eating raw fruits and vegetables, whole grains, seeds and a correct intake. of water, as well as avoiding refined sugar, the abuse of red meat, cow's milk and derivatives, refined salt, flours, breads, soft drinks, alcohol and tobacco.
Currently, the approach in the treatment of cancer is personalized, with precision medicine and according to each person, so when faced with a diagnosis of cancer, a patient should ask their doctor to talk about the new tools and treatments to overcome this disease. , in order to avoid over-treatment and sub-treatment, he concluded.
The company Nanopharmacia Group has developed genetic-metabolic strategies so that, together, with certain nutra-epigenetic products they help the therapies ForMakes that today cancer patients are applied.