High-Sugar Diet Linked to Breast and Lung Cancer

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A high-sugar diet doesn’t only increase the risk of obesity and diabetes, but it may also increase your risk of breast and lung cancer, The Houston Chronicle reports.

For the study University of Texas M.D. Anderson researchers put mice in different groups and fed one of four diets. After six months the researchers concluded that mice on a starch diet “had measurable tumors, whereas 50 to 58 per cent of the mice on sucrose-enriched diets had developed mammary tumors.”

The team of researchers also concluded that the risk of lung metastases was significantly higher in mice on the sucrose or fructose rich diet.

“We found that sucrose intake in mice comparable to levels of Western diets led to increased tumor growth and metastasis, when compared to a non-sugar starch diet,” said Peiying Yang, PhD, assistant professor of Palliative, Rehabilitation, and Integrative Medicine.

“This was due, in part, to increased expression of 12-LOX and a related fatty acid called 12-HETE. We determined that it was specifically fructose, in table sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, ubiquitous within our food system, which was responsible for facilitating lung metastasis and 12-HETE production in breast tumors,” said co-author Lorenzo Cohen.

Previous studies have shown that dietary sugar intake causes inflammation, which may lead to breast cancer, “but these studies have not shown a causal link.”