High-fructose Corn Syrup is Everywhere — Scientists Say It May Make Cancerous Tumors Grow Faster

Eating fructose boosts the growth of cancerous tumors — by two-fold or greater in some cases — without changing body weight, fasting glucose, or fasting insulin levels.

by Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D.

Eating fructose boosts the growth of cancerous tumors — by two-fold or greater in some cases — without changing body weight, fasting glucose or fasting insulin levels, according to a peer-reviewed study published Dec. 4 in Nature.

The authors of the study showed that dietary fructose promotes cancer tumor growth in mice that have melanoma, breast cancer and cervical cancer.

Fructose is a naturally occurring sugar found in some fruits, vegetables, honey and table sugar, according to the Mayo Clinic. The consumption of fructose has greatly increased in recent decades since food and beverage companies started routinely using high-fructose corn syrup as a sweetener, the authors said in their report.

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), high-fructose corn syrup is derived from corn starch. Corn starch is naturally made of glucose, but added enzymes convert some of the glucose to fructose — which tastes sweeter.

Gary Patti, Ph.D. — a professor of genetics and medicine at Washington University, the senior director for the university’s Center for Metabolomics and Isotope Tracing, and the study’s corresponding author — told The Defender:

“We put animals with cancer on a high-fructose diet and then compared the progression of the disease with animals who were on standard diets. We also fed fructose to cancer cells in a dish.

“We were surprised that dietary fructose drove tumor growth in the animals but that the same cells could not use it as a nutrient when isolated in a dish.”

This led Patti and his co-authors to discover that fructose does not feed tumor growth directly. “Instead, the liver transforms fructose into other nutrients that then drive tumor growth indirectly,” Patti said.

The researchers were also surprised to see how dramatic an impact fructose had on tumors. “In some cases,” Patti said in a press release, “the growth rate of the tumors accelerated by two-fold or even higher … Eating a lot of fructose was clearly very bad for the progression of these tumors.”

The study’s findings raise questions about the role of diet in mitigating cancer. “The idea that you can tackle cancer with diet is intriguing,” said Patti.

Ronald Fowle-Grider, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in Patti’s lab and the study’s first author, told The Defender that added sugars are not needed for a healthy diet — especially added sugars that may promote tumor progression.

“Whether in the context of cancer or not,” he said, “it is important to consider what you are putting into your body, especially non-essential additives such as high fructose corn syrup or cane sugar.”

Liver transforms fructose into nutrients that tumors use

In their report, Patti and his co-authors noted that prior research suggested that fructose promotes tumor growth directly by serving as a fuel, but that’s not what they found was happening.

Fowle-Grider said the researchers initially expected that tumor cells would “metabolize fructose just like glucose, directly utilizing its atoms to build new cellular components such as DNA.”

However, Fowle-Grider said the fructose was “barely metabolized” in the tumor cells that were isolated in a petri dish. “We quickly learned that the tumor cells alone don’t tell the whole story. Equally important is the liver, which transforms fructose into nutrients that the tumors can use.”

After discovering that cancer cells in dishes weren’t enhanced by fructose, the study authors went back to observing molecular changes in the blood of animals fed high-fructose diets.

Using metabolomics, a method of looking at small molecules as they move through cells and across different tissues in the body, they noticed elevated levels of certain lipid species, including lysophosphatidylcholines (LPCs). These lipids are building blocks for cell membranes, the press release said. Cancer cells need them to grow.

The study authors also noticed that when they put liver cells in a dish and fed them fructose, the liver cells released LPCs. This led them to conclude that consuming a lot of fructose indirectly fuels tumor growth by increasing the availability of LPCs in the blood.

Patti explained:

“When we think about tumors, we tend to focus on what dietary components they consume directly. You put something in your body, and then you imagine that the tumor takes it up.

“But humans are complex. What you put in your body can be consumed by healthy tissue and then converted into something else that tumors use.”

The study was partially funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Avoiding high-fructose corn syrup is a challenge — but that could change

The study’s findings suggest that people fighting cancer would benefit from skipping foods and drinks high in fructose, Patti said. “If you are unfortunate enough to have cancer, then you probably want to think about avoiding fructose. Sadly, that is easier said than done.”

Corn is the most heavily subsidized commodity, according to 2023 data reported by nonprofit USA Facts. The federal subsidies artificially lower its price, making byproducts like corn syrup cheaper for food and beverage manufacturers.

High-fructose corn syrup isn’t only added to sweet things like cake or candy. It’s also a common additive to many processed foods, ranging from salad dressing to spaghetti sauce. Soda companies have used it instead of regular sugar for years.

“If you go through your pantry and look for the items that contain high-fructose corn syrup,” Patti said, “which is the most common form of fructose, it is pretty astonishing.”

The average U.S. adult consumes roughly 44 pounds of fructose a year (54.7 grams per day), according to a 2008 study. For adolescents ages 12-18, the average annual fructose intake jumps to nearly 60 pounds (72.8 grams per day.) Newer estimates are unknown.

Those numbers may change if Children’s Health Defense’s former chairman Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is confirmed in January 2025 as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Kennedy believes ultraprocessed food is driving the obesity epidemic and contributing to other chronic illnesses in U.S. kids. “When we get President Trump back in the White House and me to Washington,” Kennedy said on Instagram, “we’re going to fix our broken food system and Make America Healthy Again.”

But going after high-fructose corn syrup may meet resistance from U.S. corn growers, The New York Times reported today. Archer Daniels Midland operates one of the Midwest’s largest mills that turn raw corn into high-fructose corn syrup, on the outskirts of Decatur, Illinois. The area is home to other large mills that do the same.

A worker at one of the mills told the Times that Kennedy’s battle against high-fructose corn syrup would have a “huge impact” on the area. “That shuts down Central Illinois, if A.D.M. shuts down,” the worker said.

Additionally, influential billionaires — including Waren Buffet and Bill Gates — benefit from the high-fructose corn syrup industry, which may make large-scale changes in the food and beverage industry’s choice of sweetener more challenging.

Buffet is currently ranked as the world’s eighth-richest person with a net worth of $144.5 billion. He is the CEO and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, a publicly traded multinational conglomerate company.

An earlier investigation by The Defender revealed that Buffet has vertical investments in various components of the high-fructose corn syrup industry.

The investigation also revealed that Gates benefits indirectly from Buffet’s investments because Berkshire Hathaway is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s second-top holding.