How Can Calorie Intake impact Cancer Development?

Restricting consumption of glucose can extend the life of healthy human-lung cells and speed the death of precancerous human-lung cells, reducing cancer's spread and growth rate, say researchers.

Boffins from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) conducted tests by growing both healthy human-lung cells and precancerous human-lung cells in laboratory flasks. The flasks were provided either normal levels of glucose or significantly reduced amounts of the sugar compound, and the cells then were allowed to grow for a period of weeks.
Principal investigator Trygve Tollefsbol, Ph.D., D.O., a professor in the Department of Biology, said: "In that time, we were able to track the cells' ability to divide while also monitoring the number of surviving cells. The pattern that was revealed to us showed that restricted glucose levels led the healthy cells to grow longer than is typical and caused the precancerous cells to die off in large numbers."

The expert added: "These results further verify the potential health benefits of controlling calorie intake.

"Our research indicates that calorie reduction extends the lifespan of healthy human cells and aids the body's natural ability to kill off cancer-forming cells."

Orthorexia: Healthy Food Eating Disorder

Experts are ringing warning bells for those dangerously obsessed with eating healthy, adding they may have a disorder called orthorexia.

Cynthia Bulik, director of the eating disorders program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, referred to the phobics run from ‘impure’ foods, limit their intake and lose dangerous amounts of weight, according to ABC News.

‘We do know what we’re seeing in the clinic. We are seeing more people really worrying about what's in their food,’ The New York Daily News quoted Bulik as saying.

Researchers experts believe that the eating disorder may be a part of anorexia nervosa, in which sufferers severely limit their food intake and body weight, according to E: The Environmental Magazine.

Kathleen MacDonald of the Eating Disorders Coalition told Jezebel.com, the treatment for orthorexia so far was ‘hit-or-miss’. The paper went on to cite the case of a young woman who almost landed in her grave after becoming a vegetarian and then a vegan, she began eating only raw foods.

Richmond, Virginia resident Kristie Rutzel told Good Morning America: ‘I stayed away from restaurants. It took me maybe two or three hours . . . to figure out what my next meal was going to be.’

She told ABC about her near brush with death as she lost 60 of her 120 pounds because of her restricted diet. Rutzel has now overcome her fears of certain foods. She said: ‘It was just step by step. Just challenging myself, saying, “I used to eat this; I used to love it. Why not do it again?”