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" From this perspective of cancer as a metabolic disease, insulin and IGF promote the cancer process through a series of steps. First, insulin resistance and elevated levels of insulin trigger an increased uptake of blood sugar (glucose) as fuel for precancerous cells. These cells then begin producing energy through a mechanism known as aerobic glycolysis that is similar to what bacteria do in oxygen-poor environments. (This phenomenon is known as the Warburg effect and was discovered in the 1920s by the German biochemist and later Nobel Laureate Otto Warburg, although its importance in the cancer process was not embraced until recently.) Once cancer cells make this conversion, they burn enormous amounts of glucose as fuel, providing them, apparently, with the necessary raw materials to proliferate. By metabolizing glucose at such a rapid rate, as Thompson suggests, these cancer cells generate relatively enormous amounts of compounds known technically as “reactive oxygen species” and less technically as “free radicals,” and these, in turn, have the ability to mutate the DNA in the cell nucleus. The more glucose a cell metabolizes and the faster it does so, the more free radicals are generated to damage DNA, explains Thompson. And the more DNA damage, the more mutations are generated, and the more likely it is that one of those mutations will bestow on the cells the ability to proliferate without being held in check by the cellular processes that work to prevent this pathological process in healthy cells. The result is a feed-forward acceleration of tumor growth. While this is happening, the insulin and IGF in the circulation both work to signal the cell to keep proliferating, and to inhibit the mechanism (technically known as apoptosis, or cell suicide) that would otherwise kick in to shut it down. "
― Gary Taubes , The Case Against Sugar
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" All these women will have higher blood sugar on average than women who remain lean and healthy; their triglycerides will be higher as well. This would explain why maternal obesity, as has been documented repeatedly, is a strong risk factor for childhood obesity and among the strongest predictors of metabolic syndrome and obesity in adulthood. This implies, of course, that if insulin-resistant, obese, and/or diabetic mothers give birth to children who are more predisposed to being insulin-resistant, obese, and diabetic when they, in turn, are of childbearing age, the problem will get worse with each successive generation—a “vicious cycle,” as it’s often described in the medical literature by researchers who pay attention to the issue. "
― Gary Taubes , The Case Against Sugar
