Excerpt from 'The Power of Optimum Health on the Cellular Level' by Sherry Baker
Do Glyconutrients Hold a Key to Fighting Cancer?
'When the word cancer comes to mind, many of us think of death, tortuous treatments and scary statistics. While a lot of progress in understanding and treating cancer has been made in the past 60 years, it remains a health problem of enormous complexity. The American Cancer Society warns the number of new cancer cases will grow to 15 million worldwide and deaths will double to as many as 12 million by 2020.
Glyconutrients are critical for normal cell-to-cell communication and function, processes that go haywire when cells become malignant. "Saccharides enable cells to give and receive instructions, respond to each other's needs, know when to stop multiplying, and respect each other's space," states Emil I. Mondoa, M.D., in Sugars That Heal: the New Healing Science of Glyconutrients. "Virtually every change within our multicellular bodies, from conception until death, is to some degree mediated by this language of sugars."
There are many ways glyconutrients may work with the body to fight cancer, including enhancing the body's immune system. "The most efficient roles for glyconutrients in the diet are as broad-spectrum," Dr. Mondoa writes. "But when saccharides are added to the diet, it's been demonstrated that they can increase the efficiency of immune cells, whose job it is to scan the body for cancers and destroy them directly or call on other agents to assist. If a cancer is already established, glyconutrients can, in some cases, arouse the immune system sufficiently to regress the tumor."
A study published in the medical journal Cancer Growth and Metastasis noted the presence of altered saccharides on tumor cell surfaces - a finding that could be useful in seeking new diagnostic measures and possible treatments for cancer. In The Missing Link: The Facts About Glyconutrients, author Neecie Moore, Ph.D., points out that this may indicate dietary supplementation with glyconutrients could protect against cancer.
