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Fructose in diet enhances tumor growth: research
- lambdaba 2y agoSteve Jobs is a prime example, he tried to treat his pancreatic cancer with fruit. Also see Thomas Seyfried's work on ketogenic diets for cancer https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/bcnews/science-tech-and-health/biology-and-genetics/targeting-cancer.html https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/bcnews/science-tech-and-health/bio...
- methyl 2y agoPancreatic cancer doesn’t have good prognosis in the first place, no matter what you eat or don’t eat.
- twostorytower 2y agoBut his was actually one of the most treatable forms and he could have potentially had many many years added to his life had he initially listened to his doctors.
- SoftTalker 2y agoYes I was downvoted last time I posted this, but: Don't try to be your own lawyer, and don't try to be your own doctor.
- mchannon 2y agoThis is the tail wagging the dog. Jobs' fruitarianism meant he didn't eat eggs, meat, dairy, or other sources of selenium. Fruit doesn't contain selenium. One of Selenium deficiency's side effects, well established in the literature: pancreatic cancer.
- throw646577 2y agoHe's not a prime example of anything to do with fruit making things worse. His chosen therapy just as likely had no worsening impact on his cancer; the problem was it had no positive impact either and he put off surgery. He had a rare form of pancreatic cancer that grows from the tip of the pancreas and can sometimes be snipped out without consequence early enough that it doesn't spread. He presumably freaked out about it all nevertheless (because it's terrifying), avoided surgery for too long and ended up having a Whipple procedure, which is fucking brutal. But there's still a pretty good chance he would have had early surgery and still ended up needing a Whipple procedure and still have passed away on roughly the same timescale. Because pancreatic cancer is a stealthy thing, and the Whipple procedure comes with its own frightening future. It's really sad he freaked out, it's really sad he didn't listen. But it's not that unusual. He's far from unique in making irrational decisions in the face of terrifying diagnoses. Should it have been a slam dunk decision? Yeah. Of course. But there we are.
- amaurose 2y ago[flagged]
- throw646577 2y ago[flagged]
- fsckboy 2y agoanecdata is no substitute for controlled studies. This study says fructose may have cancer implications, and Steve Jobs did focus on consuming fruit before he died of cancer. That there were treatments available that he forwent is immaterial, he's still a fructose datapoint in this context. i hate nerd tunnel vision. "I know a lot about some related things so I must know the answer.
- swatcoder 2y agoWith respect, it's absurdly more specious and naive to go from "mouse study suggests contigent relationship between fructose and cancer cell behavior as seen in the specific limited models of the study, inviting further research" to "Public figure with especially agressive and entirely unrelated cancer reportedly ate something that happens to contain fructose and eventually died! Same thing!"
- lambdaba 2y agoHe didn't just eat some fruit, he ate ONLY fruit and JUICED it. He MEGADOSED on fruit.
- swatcoder 2y agoThat still doesn't inform us in any way that directly relates to the study. In the big picture of cancer research, there are countless caveats and idiosycracies because most cancers are more different from each other than they are similar. This is only amplified when you're trying to make inferences about dietary consumption, where interactions between coincident foodstuffs have large chaotic effects and species (and individuals) often have different digestive behavior on the way from dietary food to some intracellular interaction. Ignoring all that inherent, acknowledged, complexity so that one might harp on some dead punching bag whose story is only known through the lens of commercial media is about as anti-scientific as you could be.
- andai 2y agoAnother comment mentioned that the mechanism by which fructose promotes tumor growth is that it increases circulating lipids. But I'm wondering, doesn't keto (which seems to fight cancer) also do that?
- throw646577 2y agoNot much evidence that keto fights cancer any better than any other exclusion diet; it might even be worse than meat exclusion diets.
- lambdaba 2y ago"Not much evidence"? That is so far from the truth.
- andai 2y agoInteresting. There's some evidence that fasting fights cancer, and there's a good deal of overlap between the effects of keto and fasting. Though obviously "stop eating everything that gives you cancer" is also a good start, and you can definitely eat processed garbage even on keto.
- rozal 2y ago[dead]
- outworlder 2y ago> Steve Jobs is a prime example, he tried to treat his pancreatic cancer with fruit. That is true – and probably didn't help. But his case is a poor example since he delayed treatment for months. EDIT: Also, actual fruits are probably not an issue. It's difficult to eat too much fruit, unless in juice form... which he did.
- lm28469 2y ago> Steve Jobs is a prime example, he tried to treat his pancreatic cancer with fruit. Pancreatic cancer will fuck you up pretty much no matter what you do. I think it literally is the cancer with the smallest survival rate
- medler 2y agoHe was lucky to get a rare, slow moving form of the cancer that can be cured with surgery if caught early enough. Unfortunately he waited nine months before getting surgery.
- former-aws 2y agoGlioblastoma has entered the chat :-)
- pixelpoet 2y ago[flagged]
- throw646577 2y agoPancreatic cancer is one of the least funny things. Don't be flippant.
- margalabargala 2y agoI don't think that OP's comment was any more flippant than is appropriate for the treatment in question.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- WorkerBee28474 2y ago> "We were surprised that fructose was barely metabolized in the tumor types we tested... We quickly learned that the tumor cells alone don’t tell the whole story... one way in which high levels of fructose consumption promote tumor growth is by increasing the availability of circulating lipids in the blood. These lipids are building blocks for the cell membrane, and cancer cells need them to grow... Over the past few years, it’s become clear that many cancer cells prefer to take up lipids rather than make them A bit of a red herring, but still interesting.
- jcims 2y agoWent though a cancer journey with a loved one a few years ago. I was quite surprised at the complete lack of specialized guidance on nutrition. It was basically ‘eat healthy’, which isn’t bad advice but it seems like there are probably optimizations to be had there. (Of course there’s no end of it on the Internets, but as part of heathcare it was absent)
- bell-cot 2y agoCynical Reaction: There are no patent royalties, fat profits, nor bragging rights to be found in giving nutritional advice.
- WithinReason 2y agoOr in researching nutrition
- stevenwoo 2y agoThe first half of her book talks about nutrition and health but the second half talks about her company that offers services to give people personal guidance on nutrition and monitoring their health, so there are some attempts to do this. https://www.caseymeans.com/goodenergy https://www.caseymeans.com/goodenergy
- jrpt 2y agoI don’t know why this is downvoted. The lack of profit motive is a big reason that nutrition and supplements aren’t as well studied through rigorous trials as drug therapies. The ones that are run are funded by grants. Rather than just “more funding” I think there needs to be more systemic ways at reducing the cost of clinical trials or using alternate methods of getting high quality scientific data for answering these questions. For example, there is a good trial running now on ketogenic diet in glioblastoma patients, NCT05708352, I think with a NIH grant and maybe the NCI as well. Here is a video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W31kR0MzyRA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W31kR0MzyRA Food and nutrition is a big business though.
- stvltvs 2y ago
- outworlder 2y ago> "one way in which high levels of fructose consumption promote tumor growth is by increasing the availability of circulating lipids in the blood. " Glad to see more research on this. Until recently, people trying to sound the alarm with regards to high fructose consumption (mainly high fructose corn syrup) have been dismissed. Excess fructose consumption increases tryglicerides, uric acid. Just uric acid alone causes a lot of issues, from heart disease to erectile dysfunction(inhibits NOX), even before gout starts. The range that's considered 'normal' has changed over time, but I feel it's too high. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7352635/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7352635/ Note that fruits are unlikely to be an issue (except perhaps as fruit juice). Most people don't eat enough of them and they have plenty of nutrients that are beneficial. EDIT: > “Interestingly, the cancer cells themselves were unable to use fructose readily as a nutrient because they do not express the right biochemical machinery,” Patti said. “Liver cells do. This allows them to convert fructose into LPCs, which they can secrete to feed tumors.” Forgot about this. Non alcoholic fatty liver disease has been on the rise for a while now, and it's mostly the high fructose corn syrup again.
- meiraleal 2y ago> Glad to see more research on this You are glad to argue for exactly the opposite of what the research found? Fructose is metabolized to lipids in the liver and that counts fruit juice, too. And the whole fruit.
- sneak 2y agoFYI, high fructose corn syrup has only slightly more fructose (a single digit percentage) than normal sugar, which also has a fuckton of fructose in it. Corn syrup is a red herring.
- nayuki 2y agoCorrect. Sucrose (table sugar) is exactly 50% fructose, 50% glucose. The most common blend of HFCS is 55% fructose, 45% glucose - which is barely different. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-fructose_corn_syrup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-fructose_corn_syrup
- running101 2y ago[flagged]
- fallinditch 2y agoMy understanding is that naturally occurring fructose found in whole fruits is accompanied by fiber, vitamins, and minerals, which help mitigate any negative effects of fructose when consumed as part of a balanced diet. However, it sounds like we should maybe be avoiding excessive amounts of certain fruit. See: A Definitive Guide to Fructose Content in Fruit [1] There was a recent episode from Diary of a CEO with a cancer expert. He seems to have some really sound advice. One particular take away for me was his finding that when the body enters a ketogenic state due to fasting the body produces defences that eat up cancer cells [2] [1] https://iquitsugar.com/blogs/articles/a-definitive-guide-to-fructose-content-in-fruit https://iquitsugar.com/blogs/articles/a-definitive-guide-to-... [2] https://youtu.be/VaVC3PAWqLk?feature=shared https://youtu.be/VaVC3PAWqLk?feature=shared
- ChumpGPT 2y agoFruit has changed dramatically over the last Century. I imagine there was a time when it was much smaller, less sweet, and only available seasonally. In this new world, we have 24/7/365 access to as much and whatever we want. There are Cherries along with every type of fruit you could want at Costco today and it's December.
- Noumenon72 2y agoCherries out of season are wrinkly and weird tasting, unless Costco has solved that. Cherries and pomegranates are my two most "seasonal" fruits, in contrast to the always-available ones. I feel like mangoes and cantaloupes have seasons too, I just don't know how to detect them since they keep selling them even when they're not good.
- Nasrudith 2y agoExcept the fruit in the past was often available out of season but as pickling or preserves, via either excesses of salt or sugar. For several centuries. Let alone the parts of the world that don't really have four seasons, instead having only two, wet and dry seasons. The point being I'm not sure how much relatively recent norms will actually be able to tell us about health.
- 2y ago
- beastman82 2y agoI just asked Gemini about this, and it linked me to this article, published today. Maybe we have a reliable nutrition guide after all!
- pharrington 2y agocorrect title is "Research reveals how fructose in diet enhances tumor growth"
- deanc 2y agoOn a similar note... There is a particular type of kidney disease called Polycystic Kidney disease which is genetic. Essentially cysts grow all over your kidneys, they swell up, and eventually fail (usually over many years). There is emerging research that glucose contributes to the growth of these cysts and early research suggests ketogenic diet can have a measurable impact on the growth of these cysts and improve kidney function.
- defensem3ch 2y agowhat was the source of fructose used in the study? it doesn't say
- uhtred 2y agoWhy are so many techies also keto fanboys. I suspect it's because diets like keto say it's OK to eat loads of meat and basically don't require any sacrifice. Fuck the environment and fuck other animals right bros?!
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoIt's hard to find tech jobs that aren't in support of some activity which is making the world a less pleasant place to be. So you're starting from a pool which has already has some cognitive dissonance momentum going. I don't think it's too surprising that that momentum would carry over into dissonance re: the side effects of your diet.
- Nasrudith 2y agoTake your blinders off, please. Tech is nowhere unique in that issue and pretending so itself is its own major delusion of exceptionalism.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoPointing out that other groups have the same problem doesn't make it any less of a problem. Besides, money is an information technology, if anybody is going to recognize its bugs as such and fix them, it's going to be us.
- black_13 2y ago[dead]
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoI feel like fruit used to be food but now the available cultivars resemble candy. Or maybe it's just my taste buds changing, not sure.
- hex4def6 2y agoI feel like I came across some similar research years ago. It brought up a question that I'm hoping someone in this field could answer: Does it make sense to speed up cancer cell replication while providing chemo drugs? It seems like this would result in greater discrimination between fast-replicating cells (cancer) and normal cells. In turn, this would allow faster chemo treatments, or less collateral damage.
- ramon156 2y agoI'm not in the field at all, but this also sounds slightly dangerous in a way. Chemo isn't instant and constant, so you'd have to time this well i suppose. Nonetheless this is a take from someone who has limited scientific knowledge, so I'm curious to see responses on this question!
- alecdote 2y agoI’m a biologist (but not a cancer biologist). A lecturer in college explained that this is how chemo works. It impacts actively dividing cells. Your own stem cells divide but not as fast as tumor’s. So this seems right in theory.
- eecc 2y agoAlso this time “In mice”? (I hope)
- zenon 2y agoMaybe worth noting that you have to eat a pretty large dose of fructose for it to make it all the way to the liver. More than in a few pieces of fruit. The small intestine converts up to 1g/kg (of bodyweight) fructose to glucose and other metabolites before it enters the liver portal vein.
- mchannon 2y agoFun fact: Sucrose, from our friends cane sugar and beet sugar, is a glucose/dextrose molecule tied to a fructose molecule. And when you digest it, you get the effects of some of each. Another fun fact: The "H" in HFCS stems from the fact just plain "corn syrup" is defined as 0% fructose. Fast food restaurants push the percentage to 58%+ fructose to turbocharge the sweetest taste in their sodas.
- adamredwoods 2y agoGuess what? Glucose limitation helps protect cancer cells! Gee, so much research on diet, and still no answers, tells me that diet research might not be the path to go down on stopping cancers. https://www.nature.com/articles/s42255-024-01166-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s42255-024-01166-w >> Most cancer cells rapidly consume glucose, which is severely reduced in the nutrient-scarce tumour microenvironment. In CRISPR-based genetic screens to identify metabolic pathways influenced by glucose restriction, we find that tumour-relevant glucose concentrations (low glucose) protect cancer cells from inhibition of de novo pyrimidine biosynthesis, a pathway that is frequently targeted by chemotherapy.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- spacephysics 2y agoMakes sense why ketogenic diets have been reported to slow down cancer progression https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6375425/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6375425/
- adamredwoods 2y agoThis "research" helps her run her side hustle: https://www.ketoonc.com/contact https://www.ketoonc.com/contact No diet has been conclusively shown to slow or stop cancer. I guarantee cancer cells can mutate to survive a keto diet.
- arcticbull 2y agoFasting can, to a small extent, but not as much as actual chemo.
- rd11235 2y agoAn obvious question that isn’t answered (in this article - not sure about the paper itself) is whether feeding fructose results in MORE tumor growth than feeding glucose (or other sources of calories) Without knowing this, it doesn’t make any sense to assume that there is anything inherently bad about fructose, at least other than the mechanistic arguments mentioned in the article (which are weak if not backed up by empirical evidence)
- wonder_er 2y agoThe books "The Case Against Sugar" and "Tripping over the Truth: How the Metabolic Theory of Cancer Is Overturning One of Medicine's Most Entrenched Paradigms" seems worth plugging. Sugar is not safe, even though it is ubiquitous. For many reasons avoiding meat seems reasonable, too. I used to be full vegetarian, for years, and then eventually re-added salmon and sardines. It's a tiny step to full-on vegetarian keto, which is as good for you as full-on fasting is, I think. I don't eat breakfast, veggie omelette for lunch (sautee some mushrooms and zuccini, or broccoli, perhaps, crack some eggs in once they cook down, give lots of olive oil and a side of something like kimchi, cabbage, or a pickle. Usually eat whatever I want for dinner, including icecream, sometimes, but I spend most of the day in a low-sugar state of being, and if I 'clean up' my dinner(s) it's easy to eat a zero-added-sugar, extremely-low-carb, no-animal-protein, extremely-satiating form of food intake. I really like it for me, and when I cook any of my foods, either when trying to be 'keto' or adding things like sweet potato, banana bread, ice cream, pizza, whatever, it's always well-received and considered delicious.
- bevesce- 2y agoSo now even fruits are not healthy? Are leafy greens the only food category we can eat without feeling guilty?
- msarrel 2y agoWe've known that sugars increase the rate of tumor growth for 50 years already.