ACUPUNCTURE MEDICINE: CAN AVOIDING DIETARY SUGAR PREVENT CANCER?
Key Points
Inflammation and dietary sugar
One of the major causes of inflammation in the human body is the overconsumption of processed white sugar. When I was an intern in a Taoist school of acupuncture and a red halo developed on the skin around an inserted needle, the master would say, “Too much sugar is causing heat.” What the Master meant (in Western terms) was that consumption of sugary foods would create inflammation in the blood. This would manifest as a red circle on the skin around the acupuncture needle. Whenever I see that in the clinic today, invariably the patient will respond “yes” when asked if they have recently consumed a sugary food.
The Sweet Taste of Acupuncture Medicine: The Spleen and the Pancreas
In the view of acupuncture medicine, the organ called the spleen shares many of its functions with the Western anatomical organ, the pancreas. According to the Five Element Theory of Acupuncture Medicine, the sweet taste goes to the spleen. A little sugar will nourish the organ, but an excess will weaken the spleen’s functioning. The same holds true for the pancreas. Too much sugar triggers too much insulin production. Too much insulin production will weaken pancreatic function and hasten the inflammatory process.
The Role of Insulin in the Inflammatory Process
Too much insulin causes the cells to uptake sugar at an increased rate. When the cells can no longer uptake this sugar, it gets stored as fat around the abdominal area. This leads to a host of other problems. Among them are:
- increased risk of heart disease
- insulin resistance;
- obesity;
- metabolic syndrome (a precursor to diabetes);
- a decrease in immune system response;
- an increase in stress hormones such as cortisol; and, most importantly,
- increased inflammation
The role of inflammation in cancer
The topic of inflammation is the subject of many books, both in Western biomedicine and in acupuncture medicine. In acupuncture medicine, inflammation is known both alternatively and progressively as heat, fire, and toxic heat. This inflammatory process is involved in many, if not most, acute and chronic diseases. Hepatitis, arthritis, sinusitis, colitis—think of all the diseases you know that end in “itis”. This is the suffix for inflammation in modern medical terms. The inflammatory process is a disease mechanism that is directly involved in heart disease, digestive disease, bowel disease, neurological disease, etc., and especially cancer.
Inflammation causes cellular mutations and sets off the growth of cancer cells.
Cancer not only thrives on inflammation; cancer cells actually produce and secrete inflammatory molecules to catalyze their own growth. So any diet that decreases inflammation is inherently an anti-cancer diet.
How You Can Prevent Cancer
One of the ways that oncologists determine the presence of cancer is to test for the cellular uptake of sugar. Cancer cells uptake and utilize sugar at an accelerated pace compared to normal cells. That’s because cancer cells cannot utilize oxygen for metabolism and therefore depend on sugar in order to survive. Therefore, you can prevent cancer by cutting down on the consumption of sugar and all simple carbohydrates.
They enter the bloodstream much too quickly and spike blood sugar levels. This leads to an increase in blood insulin and an increase in the inflammatory process. By cutting sugar out of your diet, you are preventing cancer in two ways: by lowering inflammation and by not providing the fuel for cancer’s growth. If you are serious about cancer prevention, this is the most important dietary change you can make.
