Sugar and Carbohydrates VS Cancer

When it finally hit me that I had cancer, trust me it takes a while to

set in, I started doing research on diet. I had already heard from several people and had read several articles via Facebook about how a plant-based-diet was beneficial to anyone who was sick. 

This wasn't just people with cancer, but people with other sorts of diseases, like auto-immune diseases, heart disease, MS, and all sorts of other ailments. I read and watched documentaries and found that a plant-based-diet had helped many people with horrible diseases, including cancer, to heal themselves of the disease, or decrease their symptoms to the point that they no longer needed any medications. In some cases the diseases were cured completely. (I strongly suggest watching the documentary on Netflix called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.)

Well, in one of the books I was reading called Crazy Sexy Diet, the author mentions that cancer feeds on sugar and there were studies done that proved this. So when she switched to a plant-based-diet, the only sweeteners she consumed were Stevia and Agave. Stevia apparently is known to not react to our body the same way that regular sugar does. So it doesn't feed the cancer cells.

Anyways, I had to look into this because it was already hard to switch to plant-based-diet and get rid of all animal products. Did I really have to get rid of sugar too? Was I feeding my cancer by eating carbs and things with sugar in them? Sugar is plant based. So I did some research, and I'm still unsure. There are differing ideas out there. 

Most of the articles say that exercise along with having small meals will decrease the cancer's ability to gain access to the glucose and use it to grow. Other articles say that this is just a myth and that sugar does not make cancer grow faster. It's scary to think that, as a

cancer patient, I'd have to worry about, not only eating well, maintaining my weight, but then also avoiding sugar and carbohydrates. If you are interested, feel free to read the two articles that I got most of my information from below. 

Article # 1

Article #2

Chemotherapy makes you feel yucky and it decreases your appetite or takes it away all together. So eating healthy is very difficult at times because all of the oncology nutritionists will tell you to just eat what you feel like eating. They are concerned with their patients maintaining their weight and nothing else. If you have cancer, diet is the one thing you can control. I suggest watching the documentary What The Health on Netflix and also the documentary Vegecated if you are interested in learning more about plant-based-diets and what they can do for your health. 

I chose to change my diet, and instead of getting rid of sugar and carbohydrates all together, I have just lessened the amount of sugar that I eat in a day. Natural sugars are fine (like in fruits), and good carbohydrates like potatoes, whole grains, nuts, and rice are fine.

You can control your diet and what you eat and if not heal yourself, then assist in the healing process. With my kind of cancer, I didn't have much of a choice to try and heal myself with diet. Acute Myeloid Lukemia is fast acting and so the doctors had to act fast and had me on Chemo my the day after I was admitted to the hospital. Now I'm doing my best to help my healing along by eating a plant based diet and giving my body all of the healthy nutrients it needs to heal the cancer and to stay healthy. Check out the below articles. Article 4 is great if you aren't totally sold on the plant-based diet. Even though I'm vegan and am moving towards a whole food plant-based diet, I thought Article 4 was really helpful. I hope you do as well!

Article 3

Article 4