Q: If glucose feeds cancer what about raw honey?
A: White ’table’ sugar is refined natural sugar. It consists of sucrose, where the fructose and glucose molecules are linked together.
Glucose is the favourite food of a cancer cell.
Raw Honey starts out as nectar, which is largely plant saccharides regurgitated, hydrolysed and dehydrated by the digestive enzymes of the bee to produce about 38 per cent dehydrated fructose and 31 per cent dehydrated glucose as separate, non-linked compounds. Natural sucrose, maltose and water make it up to 100 per cent. Raw organic honey usually has a glycemic value below 50 while refined white sugar is 100.
Where honey has crystalline deposits, this is the glucose in a dehydrated (monohydrate) form. Raw Honey also contains vitamins, about 20 amino acids, and up to 150 natural compounds (some of which may have anti-cancer benefits) depending upon the environment of the bees, as well as having anti-microbial and anti-bacterial properties.
There is no research to suggest dehydrated glucose is less liked by cancer cells than white refined glucose. But, there is research that concludes consuming raw honey lowers plasma glucose, homocysteine and lipid levels (J Med Food 2004 Spring;7(1):100-7). And there is research that shows people with lowered plasma glucose levels develop less cancer and survive longer. (Cancer Watch, 2010)
A number of websites talk of there being little difference between white sugar consumption, and honey consumption and that the latter is not ’healthier’. The evidence would say that this view is clearly simplistic and inaccurate.
For more information on the anti-cancer properties of honey and bee propolis try /cancer-active-page-link.aspx?n=2028&Title=Bee