Can cutting down on sugar cure cancer?

Hyderabad: A Facebook post claims that cutting down sugar will cause cancer cells to die naturally.

The caption reads, “Cancer is not the disease Dr Gupta says, no one should die of cancer except without care. The first step is to stop all sugar intake, without sugar in your body, the cancer cells die naturally.”

Fact Check

NewsMeter found the claim to be false.

According to Cancer Research UK, “There’s no evidence that following a “sugar-free” diet lowers the risk of getting cancer, or boosts the chances of surviving if you are diagnosed.”

It added, “Here’s where the myth that sugar fuels cancer was born: if cancer cells need lots of glucose, then cutting sugar out of our diet must help stop cancer growing, and could even stop it developing in the first place. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. All our healthy cells need glucose too, and there’s no way of telling our bodies to let healthy cells have the glucose they need, but not give it to cancer cells.”

We looked for a direct relationship between sugar intake and cancer. According to Cancer.Net, “The short answer is no. No studies in people have shown that reducing sugar intake prevents or treats cancer. Furthermore, no studies have shown that eating too much sugar causes cancer. In other words, there is not a direct link between sugar and cancer.”

An ABC News article stated, “Stopping sugar getting to cancer cells would also mean that your body’s healthy cells get starved of necessary sugars.”

From this, it is evident that there is no link between sugar intake and cancer cells. Hence, the claim is false.