What Is Cancer | Is Sugar Really Giving You Cancer?

Debunking cancer myths: Is sugar really the cause? The truth about what cancer is.

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Episode Description:

You've probably heard someone say that sugar causes cancer.

It sounds simple. But cancer biology is anything but simple.

The details matter more than most people realize.

• Is sugar really the cause—or something else entirely?

• Why cancer existed long before modern diets

• What cancer cells actually need to become dangerous

• The overlooked role of mutations and metastasis

• Why treatment decisions depend on much more than diet

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info@elevatingcancertreatment.com

https://elevatingcancertreatment.com

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Disclaimer:
The information provided in this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only, and does not constitute medical advice. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard or read in this podcast or on this channel.
Reliance on any information provided by Dr. Jay Chaplin or Elevating Cancer Treatment is solely at your own risk. Dr. Jay Chaplin is a scientist and drug developer, not a medical doctor providing patient care. The content presented here reflects general scientific understanding and research, and may not be applicable to your individual health circumstances. Individual medical conditions and treatments vary, and no two situations are exactly alike.
Always consult with your personal healthcare provider before making any decisions about your health or treatment plan.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I recently saw a video where a professor claimed cancer comes from just eating too much sugar, that it didn't occur in our ancestors, and that DNA mutations play only a little teeny tiny minor role in cancer. And this kind of misinformation is not only totally inaccurate, but incredibly misleading and cruel to you. We're setting the record straight on a fundamental question. What is cancer really? We'll explore the true biology of this complex disease, empowering you to understand its origins, behavior, and why accurate information is your most powerful tool. Welcome back to Elevating Cancer Treatment. I'm Dr. J. Chaplin. As a scientist, I'm dedicated to understanding and combating complex diseases, and I've seen firsthand how misinformation can slow progress and create absolutely unnecessary fear and guilt. That's why on this channel we're committed to breaking down evidence-based insights, dissecting complex medical topics, and empowering you to make informed decisions about your health journey. So before we begin, a quick reminder: information presented in this video is for educational purposes and should not be considered medical advice. Always consult with your personal health care provider for guidance tailored to your specific health situation. Why that's important, we'll dive into in detail in this episode. Here at Elevating Cancer Treatment, we explore the intricate world of cancer, dissecting the science and debunking myths to help you navigate your health journey with clarity and confidence. What distinguishes my approach is a dual commitment. Beyond researching cancer, I'm crafting innovative drugs that are defining the future of oncology. This direct, hands-on experience gives me an unparalleled grasp of these therapies' molecular mechanisms and their interaction within the human body. That's a unique insight, and I'm excited to share it with you. If that sounds like something you're interested in, make sure to like this video, subscribe to the channel, and hit that notification bell so you don't ever miss an episode. Alright, so before we dive in, two last things. First, I've created a free resource, 10 things to know about chemotherapy, which you can download from the link in the description. And second, by signing up, you'll also get exclusive updates on the innovative new cancer treatment I'm working on. I'm confident it represents a significant leap forward for immunotherapy for cancer, and I'm committed to bringing you direct updates on its advancements. So take a moment, download your free guide, and join us in shaping the future of cancer treatment. So again, the other day I was absolutely sickened to see this video where a professor was trying to convince everyone that cancer comes from eating too much sugar, that you can just treat cancer by eliminating sugar from your diet. And that's not how cancer works, and you don't need to feel guilty about it. Let's talk about what cancer is and isn't, so you can better understand how it's treated and why. So, first off, the professor claimed that cancer never occurred in our ancestors because they didn't have sugar in their diet, that only 5 to 10% of cancer has to do with DNA mutations, and that it really comes from our modern diet with too much sugar, and none of those are true. Cancer has been around for a long, long time. The first confirmed cancer in a human ancestor goes back 1.7 million years ago, while skeletons from Austria, 4000 BC and Sudan, 1200 BC, show clear, metastatic, and malignant cancer, and the ancient Egyptians both had and treated breast cancer back in 2500 BC. If you look at other animals, particularly a turtle, the evidence goes back at least 240 million years before the dinosaurs were first appearing. Bone cancer in a turtle 240 million years ago. The term cancer itself comes from Hippocrates, a Greek physician who lived around 300 BC and described the spread of tumors over time as similar to crab's legs, cancer of the crab. It's not a new disease or something unique to our modern world. It's not even unique to humans, but we are seeing more of it now. Why is that? Two major reasons why we're seeing more cancer now. First, we're detecting it much earlier. We can now find and treat cancers that even just 50 years ago would have gone completely undiagnosed and untreated, leading to mysterious deaths. Second, we're living longer, and while cancer can and does occur in the young, the biggest risk factor for any cancer remains aging, with a risk at age 60 over 38 times that of those under 20. We talk about processed meat being a risk factor for colon cancer, and it is. It's an increase of somewhere between 20 and 50%, or smoking being a huge risk factor for lung cancer. Yeah, it's 25 times higher. But a 38 times increase is still by far the largest in the main driver. So why is cancer related to aging? It's because there's no one cause to cancer, but instead that several different factors need to happen at the same time in the same cell in order to cause cancer. In general, three to eight major defects are required for a cell to progress to cancer, and it takes time for those changes to accumulate. While it can happen early in life, the longer you live, the more damage your cells take, and eventually enough things are likely to go wrong that one of your cells forgets how to play nice with the rest of your body. That's what cancer is. When we think of normal, well-behaved cells, they have certain features. They have a limited lifetime, they only grow enough to replace themselves, they don't grow over each other and invade other tissues. Your kidney doesn't go to war with your liver. That's what we call contact inhibition. And they also don't break loose and relocate to some distant place, what we call metastasize. Beyond these, a normal cell is very careful about the integrity of its DNA, and it would rather commit suicide, technical terms aptosis, rather than keep copying a defective genetic code. This is enforced by things we call tumor suppressors, genes like TP53, RB1, or BRCA. In order for a cell to become cancerous, it needs to, at an absolute minimum, become immortal, grow in a rapid and uncontrolled fashion, and grow over its neighbors. That's a minimum of three defects or hits. And usually at least one of the tumor suppressor systems needs to be shut off. That's a fourth hit. The reason why when samples are taken of normal cells, you often find one or two defects, but the cells behave just fine. It's because they don't have all of the changes, just one or two. Or perhaps there were polyps found on a colonoscopy, but you were told to wait because they weren't cancerous yet. The cells were growing too much, but they're not invading their neighbor's territory yet. It's not cancer. Some of these hits are harder than others. For instance, only 5 to 10% of breast cancer cases have a BRCA mutation that's passed down through their family. But if it does run in your family, the risk is 72% by age 80. That's because BRCA mutations are involved in DNA repair and tumor suppression. So if you knock one of those out, all the other hits can pile up much more quickly. DNA mutates faster. Almost all of these hits are changes to DNA, though in some cases the genetic code can be untouched, but the necessary genes can be turned off by epigenetic errors. Turning off DNA repair makes mutations more frequent. By the way, that's where the professor got his 5 to 10%, only counting inherited mutations, not the spontaneous ones we find in nearly every cancer. And that's just not right. So another one, Leaf Romani syndrome, that's an inherited loss of the TP53 tumor suppressor that carries a cancer risk of 80% by age 70, but it's still below 20% for people under 20 years old. Errors pile up quickly, but time is still needed for that process. These serious hits make it much easier to get cancer, but they don't cause it directly. Nothing has a 100% cancer incidence rate. Nothing causes cancer. So does sugar cause these kinds of issues? No, it doesn't. It can't. Excess blood sugar can make existing tumors grow faster, but the underlying error isn't caused by the sugar, it's caused by changes in how the cell handles metabolism, which results in overgrowth. For instance, one of the most common mutations in cancers is in a gene called KRAS. It's responsible for signaling the cell whether to grow or not to grow. And when mutations leave it in this always-on state, the cell is left to perpetually grow. Since sugar is an easy and fast energy source, excess blood sugar will allow a KRAS mutant cancer to grow much faster. But that's because the cell now expresses more receptors to take up the sugar and more enzymes to use it for energy. Not because the sugar itself is driving the issue. Now, there are new medications that target and eliminate that specific mutant KRAS function. And when you use those, it results in normal growth and normal sugar metabolism. Cells change back. That's proof that the sugar consumption is an effect, not a cause, of the cancer. So we'll come back to the role of carbohydrate restriction in cancer prevention and treatment in a future episode. The answer is actually incredibly promising, and it's also much more complicated and potentially risky than influencers would like you to believe. It's worth diving into the details. So, what does this understanding give us? First, just like no two cancers are exactly the same, not every cell in a tumor is similar. Especially if one of the hits taken early was to DNA repair, there may be hundreds, perhaps thousands, of different mutations represented in those cells in a single tumor. And any that survive a treatment can mutate further. That's why it's really important to treat as early as possible and as hard as possible to have the best possible efficacy in that first round. The cancer can adapt if you give it a chance. Second, and while this is obvious, most people and people forget this, even with all those mutations, cancer is still very close to our normal cells, which makes it hard to treat. There are very few differences to target in trying to make drugs that attack the cancer but not our own cells. The differences that we do find can lead to really effective targeted therapies, but those have to be matched absolutely perfectly with biomarkers for the specific cancer to tell whether the drugs will be worthwhile or not. Immunotherapies can also find and exploit these tiny small differences, but immunotherapies can have significant side effects. Third, animal cells are what we call lineage dependent rather than location dependent. Plants are different, they're location dependent. If a cancer cell from the root of a plant made its way up to a leaf, it would still be cancerous, but it would become a cancerous leaf cell. Animal cells don't change like that. So if a cancer metastasizes or moves from an original location, say the liver, to a lymph node or to some other tissue, it stays the same type, resulting in the wrong kind of tissue interrupting the normal function of an otherwise healthy organ. This last part is why doctors commonly recommend chemotherapy or targeted therapy after surgery or radiation, even for mild or early stage cancers, to make sure to clean up any of those cells that have relocated and prevent more damaging and harder-to-treat relapses in other organs. So, in conclusion, understanding what cancer truly is, a complex disease rooted in accumulated cellular errors that occur over time. It's not simply a modern affliction or a consequence of diet alone. Understanding that's crucial for effective treatment and informed decision making. We've seen that cancer has a long history, it definitely predates modern lifestyles, and its increased prevalence today is largely due to our longer lifespans and advanced detection methods. The idea that a single cause, like sugar, is responsible is a very dangerous oversimplification, and it causes unnecessary guilt. Instead, cancer arises from multiple hits or genetic mutations that disrupt the cell's normal behavior, leading to uncontrolled growth, invasion, and potential metastasis. This nuanced understanding highlights several key points. The diversity within cancer cells, even within a single tumor, requires early and effective treatment to prevent further adaptation and resistance. The close resemblance between cancer cells and our normal healthy cells makes treatment very challenging and necessitates highly targeted therapies and immunotherapies that exploit subtle tiny differences. Finally, the lineage-dependent nature of animal cells explains why metastasized cancer retains its original tissue type and it emphasizes the need for comprehensive treatment strategies. At the very beginning, comprehensive treatment strategies including chemotherapy or targeted therapy to address any relocated cells and prevent recurrence. So ultimately, cancer is still a formidable opponent, but it's one that we understand better than ever before. This knowledge empowers us to approach prevention, diagnosis, and treatment with a scientific, evidence-based perspective, and we can move beyond myths and misinformation. By continuing to support research and promote accurate information, we can collectively improve outcomes and work toward a future where cancer is no longer a life-threatening diagnosis. Thank you for taking the time to understand this and to make it harder for misinformation to spread. Navigating a cancer diagnosis can be overwhelming, but armed with accurate information, you can make informed decisions and advocate for the best possible care for you or your loved one. Beyond these videos, if you need more personalized guidance or a deeper dive into specific treatments to have your treatment be as effective as possible, I offer one-on-one sessions. I'm also currently in the process of developing an exclusive video series that breaks down each and every cancer drug and treatment in detail, along with ways to optimize them. You can find information on both these resources on our website linked below. So, what myths about cancer have you encountered that you would like to see debunked? What's next? You tell us. Share your thoughts and questions in the comments. Your insights definitely help us shape future episodes and continue our mission of elevating cancer treatment. We look forward to hearing from you.