Does Sugar Cause Cancer? Dr. Jason Fung On Diet, Fasting, and Cancer
- jr81568
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read

Actually there are many theories linking sugar to cancer, and most doctors and experts really do not know if eating too much sugar causes or contributes to cancer. Cancer is on the rise in older and younger people and many are getting the disease and the general advice is eating less sugar is better than excess.
Doctors do link sugar with weight gain, obesity, and diabetes which leads to disease. Obesity often is linked to diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. With this in mind cutting back on sugar might save your life. Dr. Jason Fung is a nephrologist a doctor that studies and treats kidney disease. He has a program called The Fasting Method that helps patients lose weight and reverse diabetes. It has proved in some cases to reduce the risk of cancer.
He says when you take diabetic medications, they do not rid the body of excessive glucose in Type 2 Diabetes. These medications remove sugar from the blood and send it to another organ. When the body produces too much sugar, it is not removed but stored. The solution is to eat less sugar in your diet, exercise to burn glucose and fast.
Put Less Sugar Into Your Body

Most consumers will find it hard to follow this diet. The first step is to eliminate any breads, pastas and rice made of white flour. Dr. Fung suggests eliminating white potatoes too. These products turn to sugar in the body and the more you eat the higher the glucose level.
Eating protein in moderation is acceptable as long as you do not eat too much. Grass fed meat, free range poultry and products that do not use hormones and antibiotics are suggested. Too much protein is stored in the liver and converted to sugar. Try to avoid protein drinks, protein bars, and protein powders.

Natural fats like avocados, olive oil, eggs, butter will not generally affect blood sugar. Eat fresh fruits and vegetable make them at least a quarter or half of your meal.
Dr. Fung suggest cutting down on the number of times you eat during the day can reduce your risk of cancer. Decrease the size of your meals with smaller portions and plenty of fruits and vegetables. Two or three meals a day can be enough.

Burn It Off With Exercise and Fasting

What types of exercise can burn sugar or glucose in the body. Aerobic exercise walking, running, swimming, biking, hiking, Pilates, or working out at the gym. Repetitive exercises using resistance bands, weights, and machines. Exercise in the water swimming laps, and other aquatic exercise. These are some options to include daily to burn glucose in the body.
Choose an exercise you enjoy and want to continue doing several days a week. This way you will stick with your exercise routine. Exercise promotes good health and burns off glucose.
Fasting is a way of decreasing the amount of time you are eating and processing food. You do not have to fast 24 hour or 14 to get the benefits. You can fast 8 hours daily or 4.
For examples after you eat dinner at 5 or 6 pm you do not eat anything for eight hours until the next day. Perhaps you eat breakfast later in the morning or skip it and have lunch. This is just an example of a fasting routine.
Another example, you eat a large breakfast, skip lunch, and later in the day eat dinner. After you do not eat for eight hours and the next morning skip breakfast and start with lunch. This gives your body a chance to digest and process what you ate. When you continually eat all day long the body cannot burn or process glucose.
Our bodies are designed for fasting and excessive weight is there for times when food is not available. Dr. Fung fasts for 24 hour and for several days at a time but this routine may be too extreme or not very beneficial for everyone.
Check with your doctor before tying the diet and fasting method. Fasting for 8 to 4 hours per day may be more practical for most consumers.
Does his method work to reduce cancer and improve health.? In some studies, it has shown to help with weight gain, obesity, reversing diabetes, and preventing cancer. The benefit of the fasting method is it uses exercise, diet, and fasting to improve your health without surgery and medications.

References:
How Fasting Can Beat Genetics and Control Cancer With Dr. Jason Fung and David Asprey, The Fasting Method, David Asprey website, 2025
Diabetes Can Be Easily Reversed and Prevented A Doctor Explains How by Dr. Jason Fung, Science Focus, May 29, 2025
How to Prevent Cancer With Food and Fasting by Jason Fung, Lewis Howes Site, Greatness 2025,
The Cancer Code by Dr. Jason Fung, Dr. Jason Fung website, 2025