There is a test they give cancer patients called a PET scan. They put sugar that is radioactive in the body and then scan to see where the sugar goes. If there is any cancer, that part of the body will "light up" because, as the doctor told my mom, cancer loves sugar. He said cancer needs a lot of energy to grow and will draw the sugar there first if it's not being used as energy. The patient can't move during the test so the sugar won't be used up and will be free to be confiscated, so to speak, by the cancer.
But any area that is recovering from an infection also will draw more of the sugar because the more rapid cell activity of healing needs energy. And PET scans are frequently used on brain function tests because our brains use a lot of glucose as energy. I am still trying to understand more fully how our body converts food to glucose and I know we need some. But I can tell so far that high blood sugar is harmful and any food that raises it fast should be avoided.
I can't say from my research whether sugar causes cancer but it does seem that too much of it in the blood stream would certainly make the environment more favorable for it to grow faster. I just don't think the medical research community is too good at making the links between nutrition and health, probably because the profit is in drug therapy and there's no money in prevention.
Or maybe they have told us and common sense tells us but we don't listen because it tastes good so they focus their efforts on fixing the problems of the stubborn and addicted by developing drugs.
I mean, people still smoke, and drink heavily and then want a doctor to fix what those habits cause. We do know for sure that consumption of a high level of refined carbs does cause diabetes in a lot of people but people still do it. Like smokers, we all hope we are the one that dodges the bullets.
I recently saw a documentary about an Indian tribe in Arizona who, because they have no water rights or gardens, have to rely on government staples for their survival at the reservation. They have been sent mostly flour, sugar and grease for years and now, as a community, the rate of diabetes is near 50% from the lack of access to fresh food. They were forced to eat what they had on hand to live but we are choosing to eat too much of the same things because it's cheap, quick and easy....and possibly killing us.
My sugar free trial went off track because of my addiction to Pepsi and sweet tea. Pepsi has no nutritional value and does nothing but put sugar in my blood. If I can internalize the fact that more sugar in the blood than is needed for energy becomes available for either fat storage or additional fuel for cancer, then maybe the taste of something sweet will become repulsive just like a shot of whiskey or cigarette smoke is to me now.
It's becoming clearer to me that low Glycemic Index with smaller meals of more nutritious food is really what I want to do not just what I think I should do. A knowledge of the truth really does bring power and it's worked well with other things that can harm me. I lost any taste for alcohol when I heard how many brain cells die from drinking it and that the only thing standing between me and alcohol as a poison is my liver. And breathing smoke never did seem like a good idea but when I saw several people die from drowning in their own body fluids because they had destroyed their lungs then my choice not to smoke was confirmed. I also quit all other soft drinks, including some fruit drinks, when I read the research on the sodium benzoate that's in them as a perservative. They think it alters our myochondrial DNA. And did you know that in aspartame they also have to put an antidote to the formaldehyde-like substance in it?
It takes zero willpower and self control not to consume any of those things so this knowledge of what high sugar and carb foods is doing to my body I think has just made me more free.
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