It’s a commonly held belief that sugar only feeds all the bad stuff in our bodies, like parasites and cancer.
But what if parasites and cancer are the result of other things we are doing to mess up our ability to metabolize sugar, and sugar isn’t really the cause at all?
In fact, ketones and lactate fuel tumor growth and metastasis.[1] Not sugar. In order to grow tumors in rats, they were starved to increase lipolysis (breakdown of fat) which increased levels of what are called free fatty acids.[2] And guess what? Free fatty acids create insulin resistance, which leads to type 2 Diabetes.[3]
This means that all the dieting, fasting, low carb, keto, sugar-free Candida fads are actually creating the perfect environment for cancer.If you’re finding yourself in a situation where you think sugar is causing you problems, it would be wise to focus on improving your insulin sensitivity rather than continuing to starve your body of carbs and sugars.
If someone was a really bad swimmer, you have two choices: teach them to swim or teach them to be so afraid of water they never go near it. This is the same for sugar metabolism. You can either help your body relearn how to properly metabolize sugar, or continue avoiding it and never fix the problem. And as you now understand, that just increases your risk of cancer and diabetes without getting to enjoy sugar. Just like the person who never learns how to swim but ends up accidentally falling into a pond and drowning.
It all comes down to stress. Cortisol is the major mediator of all of these disease processes, not just diabetes and cancer, but overgrowth of yeast, bacteria and other parasites. These conditions cause a massive increase in what’s known as endotoxin, the symptoms of which many people refer to as “detox” or “die-off” that they exacerbate by doing “cleanses” and fasting.
The cortisol and “stress dieting” just increase the free fatty acid levels, inflammation, and the other stress chemicals that lead to cancer and disease. Primarily those are estrogen, serotonin, prolactin, and nitric oxide. These are all especially elevated on keto diets, just as they are in diabetics. The combination of which also induces infertility, anxiety, skin and digestion problems, and many other chronic disorders. These are the ideal conditions for infections, cysts, fibroids, tumors, autoimmune disease, and chronic pain.
Tired, achy muscles and joints? Headaches and weak digestion with bloating, and some combination of constipation and diarrhea? Dental problems and weak bones? Hair falling out and skin getting old? These are all symptoms of high lactic acid in the body, a condition of failing sugar metabolism. Now you know that’s not caused by sugar, but can actually be caused by the lack of it! Lactic acid not only makes your body a perfect petri dish (think kombucha which is high in lactic acid, too), it’s also a requirement for cancer:
“Lactate is probably the only metabolic compound involved and necessary in all main sequela for carcinogenesis, specifically: angiogenesis, immune escape, cell migration, metastasis and self-sufficient metabolism.”[4]
So really the goal here is to start by reducing cortisol. And the easiest way to do that is to carefully utilize sugar, specifically sucrose and fructose. Sucrose is table sugar, and yes it comes from plants. It’s often bound to fructose in foods, and both are important to repairing our metabolic health. Sucrose itself directly reduces cortisol, even from physical stress like cold exposure.[5]
Does that mean to just start loading up on sugar? Does that mean if you have really poor responses to sugar that they will just magically disappear?
No. It does not mean either of these things. What it does mean, is that with the right approach to eliminating the things that are getting in the way of your metabolic health will allow you to reintroduce sugar and probably many other things that were causing you problems! But it has to be done systematically and carefully, healing the gut and slowly restoring your metabolic health.
To summarize: sugar is not the problem, it’s the scapegoat. Destroying our metabolic health with polyunsaturated fats over the last century has been blamed on sugar, meanwhile per capita sugar consumption has remained stable over that entire time. What has increased? Our consumption of polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs) like vegetable and seed oils, nuts and even from replacing saturated fats from red meat and dairy with fish and chicken. The increase in linoleic acid in our diets from these foods is another direct cause of cancer, metastasis, and the growth of new blood vessels to feed tumors (angiogenesis).[6]
This is why so many products containing PUFAs also contain vitamin E as a preservative. Vitamin E, or tocopherols, are well-established for their strong anti-cancer abilities, which has to do with their ability to protect the body from the carcinogenic effects of PUFAs.[7]
This is your invitation to stop starving yourself and depriving your family of healthy sugars and saturated fats, and eat the way humans ate up until the industrialization of our food to maximize profits and disease. Not sure where to start? We are here to help. Our proven program not only arms you with the knowledge you need to heal, it provides simple ways to reduce your stress, increase your joy and connection, while freeing you of the information overload.
Schedule your free call to find out how to get started on our 6-month program that is helping so many people and families just like you create the Naturally Connected Life of their dreams!