Heavy sugar consumption increases risk of breast, lung cancer

A new study from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center demonstrates that high amounts of sugar intake can increase the risk of breast and lung cancer.

The study was conducted by giving mice levels of sucrose and fructose comparable to levels in Western diets. The researchers found sugar's impact on inflammatory pathways is the culprit.

Lorenzo Cohen, a professor of Palliative Rehabilitation and Integrative Medicine said, "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."

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Just 30 percent of mice on a starch-based diet had measurable tumors after six months, while 50 to 58 percent of mice on a sucrose-enriched diet had mammary tumors by that age.

Prior research has looked at sugar's role in cancer development, but this is the first study to look at the direct effect of sugar consumption on cancer in animals.

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