k8tieshubby
![]()
Posts:1
My wife and I went to see the Oncologist for the first time since receiving good news regarding her stage 4 breast cancer in November. While the physical signs lump in the breast and under the arm continue to shrink her Tumor Marker was up from 237 to 244. With the holidays her diet was less than responsible. Can excessive quantities of refined sugars and sweets lead to a temporary increase in her Tumor Markers ?
Forums
Reply # - January 4, 2014, 05:01 AM
Reply To: Tumor Markers
Good to hear she is doing well. In oncology, the "proof is in the pudding", meaning that physical exam, path results, and patient well-being usually trumps other findings. So this improvement in physical exam is encouraging.
Outside of clinical context, tumor markers are usually not particularly helpful, for several reasons. One reason is that they have high amont of "noise", or day-to-day variability. A tiny change from 237 to 244 in this type of lab test is often meaningless, because of the standard error of the test. It is impossible to conclude anything from such a small difference.
I don't see anything notable in the literature to suggest that tumor markers are directly increased by high sugar diet. Hope this helps.