IS SUGAR YOUR WHITE DEATH?

Sugar is always the first thing that is held responsible for everything bad happening in your body. Similarly, there are several myths around sugar and cancer. Does sugar causes cancer? How does sugar that you consume contribute to your adverse health? Let’s take a look at these in detail. A high-sugar diet can be bad news when it comes to cancer risk, but not for the reasons that often appear in the headlines. To understand everything in a clearer perspective, basics about sugar and cancer need to be learnt. WHAT IS SUGAR? Simplest form of sugar is called glucose and fructose which combine to form complex chains of molecules, called carbohydrates (The fuel of our body). You are most familiar with the “table sugar” form of sugar, which is called sucrose. This is refined, that is go through different processes to reach your house. Unprocessed foods can be high in sugars too, like honey. As chains of sugar keeps on getting longer, it is called polysaccharides and form starchy food. Starchy foods such as rice, bread, pasta and vegetables like potatoes might not taste sweet, but they are high in carbohydrate too. Sugars are important for the functioning of your living cells, no matter where they are located. When you eat or drink food materials rich in glucose, it is directly absorbed by the cells.When complex starchy food is consumed by the body, enzymes need to break it down into simpler foods for absorbtion. When there is deficiency of carbohydrates in the diet, cells start consuming fat and proteins stored in them for fuel. EATING SUGAR FEEDS CANCER? Cancer cells usually grow quickly, multiplying at a fast rate, which takes a lot of energy and thus need lots of glucose. Cancer cells also requires lots of other nutrients too, such as amino acids and fats; it’s not just sugar they crave. What is the myth? If cancer cells need lots of glucose to grow, then cutting sugar intake in your diet will stop them from growing or might prevent it in the first place from happening. Unfortunately, that is not that easy. Healthy cells of your body needs glucose too, there is no way you can train your body to give glucose to healthy cells only and not to cancer cells.

It is very important for cancer patients to have proper diets with glucose, because some treatments can result in weight loss and put the body under a lot of stress. So poor nutrition from restrictive diets could also hamper recovery, or even be life-threatening.

There’s no evidence that following a “sugar-free” diet lowers the risk of getting cancer, or boosts the chances of surviving if you are diagnosed.

WHY COUNT SUGAR?

There is an indirect link between cancer risk and sugar. Eating lots of sugar over time can cause you to gain weight, and being overweight or obese increases the risk of 13 different types of cancer. In fact, according to WHO obesity is the single biggest preventable cause of cancer after tobacco.

It’s the added processed sugar that causes problem not he natural sugars in food, like fruits, drinks, pulses etc.

HOW TO CHECK THE INTAKE

One of the easiest ways cut down added sugars is by reducing the consumption of sugary soft drinks. Fizzy drinks and energy drinks, can have more than the recommended daily maximum amount of added sugar in one serving alone with no other nutritional benefits. Reading nutrition information labels and checking the ingredients list can help you choose lower sugar options.

Learn to avoid desserts such as cakes, ice creams, pies, doughnuts and replace them with dark chocolate, sweets that are fruit based.

Apart from the food that are clearly full of sugar, there are certain surprises such as breakfast cereals that have high content usually ignored by people.

IS THIS ENDING SWEET?

So the take home message is that although banishing sugar won’t stop cancer in its tracks, we can all reduce our risk of getting cancer by making healthy choices, and lowering the amount of added sugar in our diets is a good way to help maintain a healthy body weight.

BY:

Saumya Teotia

Intern at NICPR,SLT -KH

CME on Gray Zones and Recent Updates in Breast, Thyroid, Broncho- pulmonary and Cervical Cytology 4th -5th June 2018

8th Hands-on Workshop on Cervical Cancer Screening for

Pathologists at NICPR Noida 26th to 28th July 2018.G

26th to 28th July

2018ynecologists Workshop 26th to 28th July 2018

Statistical Softwares in Medical Research. 1st to 3rd Aug 2018.

Screening Camps:

The Clinical division of the Institute extends the cancer screening facilities to the rural areas of

Gautam Budh Nagar district by organizing screening camps at primary health centers (PHC) and

community health centers (CHC) with the help of State Health authorities. Screening and

awareness camps are also organized at CGHS clinics, ESI hospitals and nearby government

institutions. Individuals attending the camps are screened for oral (visual examination), breast

(clinical breast examination) and cervical cancer (Pap smear and VIA). Women diagnosed to have

abnormalities on clinical breast examination are invited to attend breast clinic at NICPR which is

run by Prof Anurag Srivastava, Head, Department of surgery, AIIMS and his team on every Friday

2 pm. Women positive on VIA examination and Pap smear are invited to NICPR for further

evaluation using Colposcopy and biopsy if needed.

List of screening camps organized by NICPR

Sl No Place and date of camp Oral Exam Clinical Breast Exam Pap Smear

1. 03 JULY 2018 Sai

Sansthan Charitable

Hospital, Sector 40 Noida

(U.P)

20 17 17

2. 07 AUGUST 2018 , Sai Sansthan Charitable Hospital, Sector 40 Noida (U.P)

0 30 30

3. 25 SEPTEMBER 2018 , Village Chaura, Sector 22, in Collabration with CMO,GBN (U.P) Pap smear 20

0 0 20

4. 24 SEPTEMBER 2018, PHC Jarcha, Dadri in Collabration withCMO, GBN(U.P)

0 0 19

5. 11 SEPTEMBER 2018, Sai

Sansthan Charitable

0 28 26

Hospital, Sector 40, Noida

(U.P)

6. 12 OCTOBER 2018, Swami Vivekanand School, Morena ,Noida(U.P) (U.P)

33 0 0

7. 9 OCTOBER 2018, Sai Sansthan Charitable Hospital, Sector 40, Noida (U.P)

0 40 38

8. 20 NOVEMBER 2018, Air Force Station , Dadri, (U.P) (U.P)

78 34 27

9. 13 NOVEMBER 2018, Sai

Sansthan Charitable

Hospital, Sector 40, Noida

(U.P)

0 20 17

10. 05 DECEMBER 2018 , Sai Sansthan Charitable Hospital, Sector 40, Noida (U.P)

0 28 27

Publications: 2018 (July-Dec)

1. Hariprasad R, Palat G, Mehrotra R, Vallath N.: The PEP Project - Synergistic Community

Based Action in Prevention, Early Detection and Palliative Care, to Impact the Cancer

Burden in India. Indian J Palliat Care. Jul-Sep;24(3):349-354. 2018 doi:

10.4103/IJPC.IJPC_32_18.

2. Hariprasad R, Arora S, Babu R, Sriram L, Sardana S, Hanumappa S, Mehrotra R.:

Retention of Knowledge Levels of Health Care Providers in Cancer Screening Through

Telementoring. J Glob Oncol. Jul;(4):1-7. 2018 doi: 10.1200/JGO.18.00048.

3. Tripathi R, Rath G, Hussain S, Jawanjal P, Bandil K, Sharma V, Bharadwaj M, Mehrotra

R. : Jagged-1 induced molecular alterations in HPV associated invasive squamous cell and

adenocarcinoma of the human uterine cervix. Sci Rep. Jun 19;8(1):9359. 2018 doi:

10.1038/s41598-018-27699-1.

4. Grover S, Sinha DN, Gupta S, Gupta PC, Mehrotra R. The changing face of risk

factors for non-communicable disease in Myanmar: findings from the 2009 and 2014

WHO STEP Surveys. J Public Health (Oxf). 2018 Oct 15. doi: 10.1093/pubmed/fdy176.

[Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 30321380.

5. GBD 2017 DALYs and HALE Collaborators. Global, regional, and national disability-

adjusted life-years (DALYs) for 359 diseases and injuries and healthy life expectancy

(HALE) for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2017: a systematic analysis for the Global

Burden of Disease Study 2017. Lancet. 2018 Nov 10;392(10159):1859-1922. doi:

10.1016/S0140-6736(18)32335-3. PubMed PMID: 30415748; PubMed Central PMCID:

PMC6252083.

6. Sinha DN, Gupta PC, Kumar A, Bhartiya D, Agarwal N, Sharma S, Singh H, Parascandola

M, Mehrotra R. The Poorest of Poor Suffer the Greatest Burden From Smokeless Tobacco

Use: A Study From 140 Countries. Nicotine Tob Res. 2018 Nov 15;20(12):1529-1532. doi:

10.1093/ntr/ntx276. PubMed PMID: 29309692.

7. Mehrotra R, Hariprasad R, Rajaraman P, Mahajan V, Grover R, Kaur P, Swaminathan S.

Stemming the Wave of Cervical Cancer: Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Introduction in

India. J Glob Oncol. 2018 Sep;(4):1-4. doi: 10.1200/JGO.17.00030.

8. India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative Cancer Collaborators. The burden of cancers

and their variations across the states of India: the Global Burden of Disease Study 1990-

2016. Lancet Oncol. 2018 Sep 11. pii: S1470-2045(18)30447-9. doi: 10.1016/S1470-

2045(18)30447-9.

9. India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative CVD Collaborators. The changing patterns of

cardiovascular diseases and their risk factors in the states of India: the Global Burden of

Disease Study 1990-2016. Lancet Glob Health. 2018 Sep 11. pii: S2214-109X(18)30407-

8. doi: 10.1016/S2214-109X(18)30407-8.

10. India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative CRD Collaborators. The burden of chronic

respiratory diseases and their heterogeneity across the states of India: the Global Burden

of Disease Study 1990-2016. Lancet Glob Health. 2018 Sep 11. pii: S2214-

109X(18)30409-1. doi: 10.1016/S2214-109X(18)30409-1.

11. Manera KE, Johnson DW, Craig JC, Shen JI, Ruiz L, Wang AY, Yip T, Fung SKS, Tong

M, Lee A, Cho Y, Viecelli AK, Sautenet B, Teixeira-Pinto A, Brown EA, Brunier G, Dong

J, Dunning T, Mehrotra R, Naicker S, Pecoits-Filho R, Perl J, Wilkie M, Tong A. Patient

and Caregiver Priorities for Outcomes in Peritoneal Dialysis: Multinational Nominal

Group Technique Study. Clin J Am Soc Nephrol. 2018 Dec 20. pii: CJN.05380518. doi:

10.2215/CJN.05380518. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 30573659.

12. Gupta AK, Tulsyan S, Bharadwaj M, Mehrotra R. Grass roots approach to control levels

of carcinogenic nitrosamines, NNN and NNK in smokeless tobacco products. Food Chem

Toxicol. 2018 Dec 10;124:359-366. doi: 10.1016/j.fct.2018.12.011. [Epub ahead of print]

PubMed PMID: 30543893.

13. Mathur P, Mehrotra R, Fitzmaurice C, Dhillon PK, Nandakumar A, Dandona L; India

State-Level Disease Burden Initiative Cancer Collaborators. Cancer trends band burden in

India - Authors' response. Lancet Oncol. 2018 Dec;19(12):e664. doi: 10.1016/S1470-

2045(18)30857-X. PubMed PMID: 30507424.

.

Other activities

1. Mrs Satvinder Kaur 31.07.2018

2. Mr Kishan Kumar Sharma 31.12.2018

Retired after attaining the age of superannuation . Institute has given the farewell in

their respective months.