Over the past twenty years, cancer cases have experienced a spectacular flight worldwide. Long perceived as an age -related disease or specific exposures, it now affects younger and more varied populations. Modern diet, rich in ultra-transformed products and added sugars, is increasingly pointed out among the aggravating factors. However, at the heart of this reflection, an interrogation insisted: Why do cancer cells seem so fond of sugar?
An extraordinary energy dependence
Cancer cells have a very special behavior : To supply their rapid growth, they rely on energy mechanisms radically different from those of healthy cells. While the majority of cells in the human body exploit oxygen to produce energy effectively, tumor cells favor a much less profitable route: They consume large amounts of glucose, even when oxygen is available.
This singular energy preference allows doctors to spot tumors thanks to a medical imaging tool called TEP-scan. The principle is simple: A tracer that imitates sugar is injected into the body, and the areas where the cells absorb the most this compound light up on the screen. The tumors, whose metabolic activity is disproportionate, then appear clearly, revealing how much they eat differently from the rest of the body. It is this abnormal functioning that prompted Spanish researchers to offer a new therapeutic track: In a study published in the Revue Trends in Molecular Medicine, they explore how certain targeted food changes could disturb the metabolism of tumors and slow down their progression. The idea of a diet adjusted to the profile of the tumor, called precision nutrition, thus gains ground.
Better target food to slow down the progression
Rather than relying on a uniform food approach, This strategy proposes to take into account the specific needs of each type of tumor. Certain malignant cells with a pronounced appetite for glucose, the idea is to selectively deprive the tumor of its main resource. Adapting food in a targeted manner could thus disorganize the energy intake on which it depends to grow. Without replacing traditional treatments, this method would strengthen them by exploiting an internal weakness of the cancer cell.
Food, a long underestimated factor
The link between food and cancer has often been mentioned, but it is still too little integrated into therapeutic routes. However, the mode of modern consumption has evolved considerably, with a strong presence of sugars hidden in industrial products. However, if certain sick cells exploit glucose as a privileged source of energy, this raises a simple but essential question: Could we not slow down their race by modifying our eating habits?
This approach does not promise miracle solutions, but it opens a concrete field of action: That of taking up a certain control over what we give to our body, even in the middle of the disease. Better understanding the needs of cancer cells is also better to deprive them of what feeds them in excess. Thus, the fork could well become a complementary tool for scalpel and chemistry.
