Contents in this issue: “Which Is First—The Disease or the Microorganism?” “The Occurrence of Subcutaneous Sarcomas in the Rat After Repeated Injections of Glucose Solution,” by Tome Nonaka, “Health Appropriation?” “Food Contamination,” “Recent Report Calls U.S. Ill-Fed.” The following is a transcription of the January 1965 issue of Dr. Royal Lee’s Applied Trophology newsletter, originally […]
By Nancy Appleton, PhD
Summary: You’ve heard that sugar can suppress the body’s immune system, but did you know it interferes with the absorption of calcium? How about that it can cause food allergies, depression, and cancer of the breast, ovaries, and prostate? Or that sugar can reduce the good cholesterol in your blood and increase the triglycerides, two of the strongest indicators we have of heart disease risk? Despite the massive commercial campaign to paint refined sugar as harmless—or at worst merely “empty calories”—hoards of scientific evidence indicate that it is far worse than that. In this startling list, Dr. Nancy Appleton documents 124 ways in which sugar has been scientifically implicated as a poison to human health, complete with 124 reputable references to back up her claims. From nancyappleton.com, 2004.
By Bill Misner, PhD
Summary: A short and not so sweet synopsis of the dangers of sugar. Misner points out a fact that most health “experts” fail to appreciate: most of the sugar a person eats is converted to fat in the body. And once it’s converted and stored, it stays there as fat as long as the person continues to eat large amounts of additional sugar. Misner also discusses the origin and manufacture of the famous “tol” sweeteners—xylitol, mannitol, and sorbitol—as well as the malt syrups, two classes of sweeteners that generally get overlooked. While some of Misner’s conclusions are questionable, this is an excellent adjunct to any study of the negative effects of overconsuming simple saccharides (i.e, sugar). Dr. Joseph Mercola Publications, 2000.
By the Wellness Directory of Minnesota
Summary: A great primer on how cancer cells feed and what they will do to the body in order to get the glucose they must have to survive. “Knowing that…cancer needs sugar, does it make sense to feed it sugar?” the authors ask. “Does it make sense to eat a high-carbohydrate diet?” This article is a great complement to Patrick Quillin’s “Cancer’s Sweet Tooth,” also available in the these archives. From the Wellness Directory of Minnesota, 1995.
Author unknown
Summary: In this 1998 press release from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, hematologist Dr. Chi Dang discusses his famous study demonstrating that cancerous cells self-destruct when deprived of their main fuel, the sugar glucose. While Dr. Dang’s report was big news to the conventional medical world, it would have come as no surprise to many nutrition researchers of the mid-twentieth century, particularly to cancer expert Dr. Daniel Quigley of the University of Nebraska College of Medicine, who once proclaimed that no cancer patient he had ever treated “showed any material improvement unless the diet was so arranged that sugar [glucose] disappeared from the urine.” Sadly, Dr. Dang, a medical researcher, does not appear to even consider the obvious implication of both his and Dr. Quigley’s work—that cancer might be effectively treated by the simple nutritional therapy of eliminating refined carbohydrates from the diet—but instead proffers the development of a pharmaceutical drug as a solution to “the glucose problem.” In speculating about such a drug, Dr. Dang unfortunately repeats a misconception that runs rampant in both conventional and alternative healthcare—that the human brain can use only glucose as fuel. Though science has known this claim to be untrue since the 1960s (fat derivatives can be used just as well if not better), it continues to be purported today by even the most educated practitioners. Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 1998.
By Patrick Quillin, PhD
Summary: “It puzzles me why the simple concept ‘sugar feeds cancer’ can be so dramatically overlooked as part of a comprehensive cancer treatment plan,” writes Dr. Patrick Quillin in this stirring article from the April 2000 issue of Nutrition Science News. Quillin, recounting the discovery by Nobel laureate Dr. Otto Warburg that cancer cells feed exclusively on glucose, discusses his own experience in working with over 500 cancer patients as the director of nutrition for the Cancer Treatment Centers of America. Limiting sugar consumption and keeping one’s blood-sugar level within a narrow range, he says, “can be one of the most crucial components of a cancer recovery program.” That barely any of the four million cancer patients in America receive this information as part of their treatment is nothing short of scandalous. From Nutrition Science News, 2000.
By Elizabeth Crown
Summary: In 2000 a team of researchers at Northwestern University Medical School published a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association that showed a clear correlation between elevated levels of blood sugar and the risk of dying of pancreatic cancer. Since pancreatic cancer is difficult to diagnose and thus usually fatal when detected, too late, this article suggests a hopeful measure of prevention—controlling one’s blood sugar level by limiting consumption of sugar and other high-glycemic foods. From the Northwestern University Observer, 2000.
By Steven Ayre, MD
Summary: A compelling overview of an alternative therapy for cancer based on the fact that cancer cells feed exclusively on glucose. To capture as much glucose as possible, cancer cells have many insulin receptors—ten times more than any normal cell in the human body. In standard chemotherapy, the chemotherapeutic drugs cannot tell the difference between cancerous cells and normal cells, so they kill them both indiscriminately. But when such drugs are delivered along with insulin, the insulin shuttles them preferentially into the cancer cells. The result of such targeting is the sparing of normal cells and the necessity of a smaller dose of drug to get the job done. “Insulin Potentiation Therapy appears to be a wonderful new way of treating cancer,” Dr. Ayre concludes. From The Cancer Cure Foundation, circa 2005.
Author unknown
Summary: “Scientists have observed for more than 70 years that most types of cancer cells are sugar junkies,” begins this synopsis of the famous 1998 study by Dr. Chi Dang of Johns Hopkins University showing that depriving cancer cells of sugar can cause them to self destruct. “When we remove glucose from…cancer cells,” Dr. Dang says, “they commit suicide, basically, as compared with normal cells.” This finding echoes the earlier work of Dr. Daniel T. Quigley, a cancer-expert in Omaha, Nebraska, who years earlier warned of the dangers of a diet high in refined sugar. (See what Dr. Royal Lee had to say about Dr. Quigley and starving glucose out of the body here and here.) For the official Johns Hopkins press release of Dr. Dang’s study, see “Cancer Cells Self-Destruct When ‘Sweet Tooth’ is Thwarted” in these archives. From Johns Hopkins University, 1998.