pancreas cancer : Cancer and Carbs

The National Brain Tumor Foundation in Oakland, California is so convinced by the studies linking carbohydrate and insulin to cancer growth they recently revised their dietary guidelines in a dramatic way.

In the group's published dietary guideline entitled The Healing Power of Your Fork: A Brain Tumor Survivor's Eating Plan, they advise brain cancer patients to avoid low fat diets and to cut out sugar and refined carbohydrate instead. They warn patients that eating refined carbohydrate not only feeds cancer cells it suppresses the immune system as well.

Another study From Harvard University, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 2002: A Harvard research team used 18 years of data from 88,000 women who were participating in the famous Nurses Health Study to investigate whether a diet high in foods that easily raise blood glucose levels increase the risk of developing pancreatic cancer.

They found that women who were overweight, sedentary, and had the highest glycemic load increased their risk of pancreatic cancer by 250%.

And there's more. As reported recently by the Associated Press, a Mexican study of nearly 200 women showed that those who consumed a high-carb diet (more than 60% of calories from carbohydrates) were MORE THAN TWICE AS LIKELY to

develop breast cancer as women who adopted a lower-carb approach to eating.

This study supports a similar body of research from last year that linked a greater risk of breast cancer among women to a diet high in sugar (especially soft drinks and desserts), the most damaging of all carbohydrates.

Scientists who believe in the carb/cancer link hypothesize that the extra insulin released to process the simple carbs and sugars we ingest far too much of causes cells to divide and also leads to higher levels of estrogen in the blood. Both of these factors (cellular division and blood estrogen) can contribute to cancer.

As for me and my tribe we are minimizing our sugar consumption and staying with the slow digesting carbohydrates such as whole grains, vegetables and especially beans.



The cardiologist looked up from the treadmill report and grimly stated, "You are a walking time bomb. You need to go to the hospital immediately." Two days later a heart surgeon sawed open Gene Millen's chest and stitched in bypasses to six clogged arteries.

"A six way heart bypass isn't a record" said Gene, "but it's not bad for a skinny 59 year old with normal cholesterol and blood pressure. The villains and heroes in the heart attack melodrama may surprise you as they have me."


by Gene Millen