Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

How does sugar play a role in the development of cancer cells?

Sorry I don't have the time to post a full response. The first thing I would say is it is essential you learn what glycolysis, the krebs cycle, and oxydiative phosphorylation are. That is how cells digest sugar. Then you can look up something called "the Warburg Effect". Cancer cells utilize glycosis in a very unique way. Below is a higher level explaination of how this method of digestion leads to more genetic instability and mutation associated with cancer (I was answering a slightly different question however). Cheers.

" uncoupling oxidative phosphorylation (or any distruption to aerobic metabolism) will actually increase reactive oxygen species. If you disrupt the electron transport chain, eukaryotic cells have to depend on anaerobic metabolism (namely glycolysis) to meet energy demands. The cell will quickly exceed its electron carrying capacity because glycolysis produces NADH from NAD. When the cells run out of NAD they wastefully use the NADH to turn the pyruvate into lactate. This is extremely wasteful but is a desperate last attemp to keep glycolysis going with fresh NAD. The metabolic demands of a cell which relies on glycolysis alone will then create an abundance of reactive oxygen species as high energy electrons are being expelled in more destructive ways (in the process of removing those electrons reactive oxygen species must be produced). This is famously observed in avascular regions of tumors, where the cells recieve no fresh oxygen so they just put glycolysis into overdrive (known as the Warburg Effect). In the process they create many more ROS resulting in greater genetic instability associated with cancer. Hope this helps."