What is a Low Glycemic Index diet and why is it helpful to address all forms of Cancer?

Cancer requires 18 times more sugar than normal cells

Most people have heard the phrase “Cancer Loves Sugar”. That is not entirely true.  The fact is that all cancer cells use a different way of burning sugar to produce energy to stay alive and grow.

It was proven a hundred years ago that all cancer cells burn sugar without using oxygen in the process, like our normal cells do.  This process (known as anaerobic metabolism) was also proven to be 18 times less efficient than aerobic metabolism (which is what the normal cells do using oxygen).  So that means the cancer cells require eighteen times more sugar to get the same amount of energy as our regular cells.

All cells must have a continuous supply of energy or they die. Many patients respond to this information by saying  “well I don’t eat any sugar!”  The problem is that all carbohydrates turn into sugar.  Our system is even capable of turning proteins into sugar if no carbohydrates are available.

In fact, if your blood sugar level went to zero, you would die! This is because your brain requires sugar at the same level of intensity as it requires oxygen! That is why a “sugar high” is so emotionally satisfying.

This is where the benefits of a low glycemic index diet come in.  It has been proven repeatedly in studies around the world that the real danger of feeding the tumor cell is in what is called a “spike” or a sudden rise in blood sugar to abnormally high levels. Spikes are caused by consuming foods that have a high glycemic index.

The glycemic index is a scale used to measure the amount of rise in the blood sugar from consuming a set amount of a particular food.  This scale has been used to evaluate all the different kinds of foods that we eat. 

I tell my patients, “Not all carbohydrates are created equal”.

An example is sweet potatoes have a lower glycemic index than white potatoes.

Information about the low glycemic index diet (including recipes) can easily be found by an Internet search.

This is the answer to the question of why we recommend the “Low Glycemic Index Diet” to all our cancer patients.