Sugary drinks have been linked to health conditions including obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease—and they could also be fueling cancer spread in advanced colorectal cancer.
Researchers from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, who found the glucose-fructose mix in most sugary drinks directly contributes to metastasis in preclinical models of the cancer.
Metastasis—the spread of cancer cells from their original site to another part of the body—is the leading cause of death among patients with colorectal cancer and happens at the advanced stage.
“To fully understand the danger of sugary drinks, we needed to see whether they can make existing cancers more aggressive and spread faster, not just whether they increase the risk of getting cancer in the first place,” Jihye Yun, assistant professor of genetics at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, told Newsweek.
“Importantly, cancers at early and late stages are not the same—they differ in their gene mutations, metabolism and overall biology.”
Colorectal cancer includes both colon cancer and rectal cancer, of which there will be around 107,320 new cases and 46,950 new cases, respectively, in the U.S. in 2025, according to American Cancer Society estimates.
As the second-most common cause of cancer deaths in men and women combined, colorectal cancer is expected to cause about 52,900 deaths this year.
More than half of all colorectal cancers are linked to risk factors that can be changed, the nonprofit highlights, which includes excess body weight and certain types of diet.
To investigate the possible impact of sugary drinks on late-stage colorectal cancer, the researchers used laboratory cancer models to compare the effects of both glucose and fructose with those of just glucose or fructose.
They used mouse models, human cell lines and human samples and data, but they did not directly conduct experiments in humans.
“Prior studies using fructose alone do not reflect the actual composition of SSBs [sugar-sweetened beverages], which contain both sugars. Moreover, cells in organisms are never exposed to fructose alone in vivo without glucose, even after consuming 100 percent fructose solutions—such beverages do not naturally occur,” the study authors wrote in the paper.
They define SSBs as any liquids sweetened with added sugars, including sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup. “In the USA, over half of adults and nearly two-thirds of youth consume SSBs daily. This surge parallels alarming increases in young-onset CRC [colorectal cancer] incidence and mortality,” they added.
“Examples include not only traditional fizzy sodas but also energy drinks, sweetened coffee drinks like frappuccinos, nutritional supplement drinks (such as Ensure or Boost, often given to cancer patients) and fruit juices,” Yun explained.
The new study revealed that only the sugar mix made cancer cells more mobile, leading to faster spread to the liver, according to the team. The liver is the most common site of colorectal cancer spread.
The team discovered the glucose-fructose mix activated an enzyme called sorbitol dehydrogenase (SORD), which boosts glucose metabolism and triggers the cholesterol pathway, “ultimately driving metastasis.”
This pathway is the same one targeted by statins—medicines that can help lower cholesterol.
They found blocking SORD slowed cancer spread even with the sugar mix present, suggesting that “targeting SORD could also potentially help to block metastasis.”
“We showed that cutting out sugary drinks slowed down the spread of colorectal cancer in our preclinical models, even after tumors had already formed. This suggests that dietary changes could still make a difference at later stages of disease, although clinical studies in patients will be needed to confirm this,” said Yun.
A previous study by Yun’s lab showed that even moderate intake of sugary drinks directly fueled tumor growth in early-stage colorectal cancer. This was independent of the person having obesity.
Their new findings on later-stage disease suggest that as well as reducing sugary drinks, targeting the SORD enzyme may offer opportunities to reduce colorectal cancer spread. Making revisions to current dietary recommendations may also help to reduce sugary drink consumption, according to Yun.
“The next step is to see if these results hold true in people.”
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