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Cancer: The Carbohydrate Connection
We’ve known about this for a hundred years. Time to act.
In 1924, German medical doctor and scientist Otto Heinrich Warburg made a discovery that was to potentially revolutionise our understanding of cancer. His astonishing breakthrough, that was to later earn him a Nobel Prize in physiology, could have — should have — changed the course of cancer prevention and treatment. But it didn’t. It wasn’t about drugs.
When Warburg studied the way tumours use fuel as energy, he discovered that most cancer cells burn glucose to drive their growth and multiplication.
Normal, healthy cells generate energy (adenosine triphosphate, or ATP) anaerobically, that is, without the presence of oxygen. Cancer cells, on the other hand, generate their energy by fermenting dietary glucose to lactate, in the presence of oxygen. Fermentation of glucose to lactate plays an important role in the development of cancer, as Warburg demonstrated. This is called “aerobic glycolysis”, although it is now often referred to as the “Warburg effect”.
Aerobic glycolysis is a method that cancer cells appear to favour: they just love sugar. Warburg demonstrated how glucose uptake in tumour cells is 47%-70% compared to 2%-18% in normal cells.
“Due to the Warburg effect, glucose…