Sugar Consumption And Risk Of Colon Cancer

The Study

In this interesting study, 121,111 subjects from Harvard’s Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professional Follow-up Study had their sugar consumption measured and were followed for over 28 years for incidence of colon cancer. Some of the most important results include:

-Sugar sweetened beverages were associated with a significantly increased risk of proximal colon cancer. Each serving per day increased risk by 18%.

-Sugar sweetened beverages were associated with a significantly increased risk of mortality from proximal colon cancer. Each serving per day increase risk by 39%.

-Added sugar was also significantly associated with incidence and mortality of proximal colon cancer.

-Substituting a diet soda with a sugar sweetened soda each day actually reduced risk of proximal colon cancer incidence (by 19%) and mortality (25%).

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2022; 115:1481-89.

Take Home Message

You can add this to the list of 100 reasons to avoid sugar. The mechanism here is thought to be one of 2 things:

-Fructose has been shown to increase tumor metabolism and growth. When you eat a lot of sugar, which is high in fructose, you overwhelm your ability to digest it in the small intestine and it spills into the large intestine where it can come into contact with colon polyps and tumors.

-High sugar intake means high insulin levels. Insulin is also hypothesized to increase tumor growth.

It is also interesting to see that diet soda was associated with a decreased risk of colon cancer when taking the place of sugar sweetened soda. Many think that non-nutritive sweeteners are far more harmful than sugar, but the research literature keeps proving the opposite.