A question about cancer

Paddy Cow

I know three people very close to me who have or have had, battles with cancer. Each of them said that they developed a sweet tooth. Two of them never had a sweet tooth but suddenly developed a craving for all things sweet so it was very unusual. The third always like sweet things but when I asked him if he had cravings he thought about it and realised that he had been eating far more sugary stuff than usual.

We are told of the signs of different kinds of cancers to look out for but I had never heard of this. Another thing that was common to all three was that the hair on their legs stopped growing. One person had the tumour removed and the hair started growing back. While they were waiting for their check up scan to see if all the cancer had been removed, they said that they knew the cancer was back as their hair stopped growing again.

I was wondering how common an occurrence this is. Does anyone have any experience of this or is it just a coincidence?

jane82

I would never notice if my leg hair was growing or not its been an inch long since I was 15. Am I missing something or have I had cancer for the last 17 years?

MS.ing

Paddy Cow wrote: »

I know three people very close to me who have or have had, battles with cancer. Each of them said that they developed a sweet tooth. Two of them never had a sweet tooth but suddenly developed a craving for all things sweet so it was very unusual. The third always like sweet things but when I asked him if he had cravings he thought about it and realised that he had been eating far more sugary stuff than usual.

We are told of the signs of different kinds of cancers to look out for but I had never heard of this. Another thing that was common to all three was that the hair on their legs stopped growing. One person had the tumour removed and the hair started growing back. While they were waiting for their check up scan to see if all the cancer had been removed, they said that they knew the cancer was back as their hair stopped growing again.

I was wondering how common an occurrence this is. Does anyone have any experience of this or is it just a coincidence?

mild depression will cause you to eat suggary foods or rather crave it, and getting cancer tends to cause depression.




plus if they had chaemo then Im sure that rightly ****s your sense of taste so youd crave suggary fatty salty stuff just to remember what things taste like

ScumLord

I don't know if it's a known issue, just because 3 people you know developed a sweet tooth doesn't mean there's anything there.

If I was to guess I would say the body could just be craving extra calories because it's working overtime supplying the cancerous cells.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

I know several people who after chemotherapy developed a very sweet tooth. They also felt the cold much more for ever after the treatment.
Never heard the hair item before other than chemo causing hair loss.

Gran Hermano

Coincidences.

Not all cancers are the same or have the same treatments.

Cancer is not a single disease with a single cause and a single type of treatment. There are more than 200 different types of cancer, each with its own name and treatment.

Although cells in different parts of the body may look and work differently, most repair and reproduce themselves in the same way. Normally, cells divide in an orderly and controlled way. But if for some reason the process gets out of control, the cells carry on dividing and develop into a lump called a tumour. Tumours are either benign (non-cancerous) or malignant (cancerous). Doctors can tell if a tumour is benign or malignant by removing a piece of tissue (biopsy) and examining a small sample of cells under a microscope.

http://m.macmillan.org.uk/article/name/cancerinformation-aboutcancer-whatiscancer

Paddy Cow

Keira Huge Raider wrote: »

I know several people who after chemotherapy developed a very sweet tooth. They also felt the cold much more for ever after the treatment.
Never heard the hair item before other than chemo causing hair loss.

The sugar thing was before they were diagnosed, so nothing to do with the treatment.

Temptamperu

Jaysus, i better lay of the ould haribo!

Paddy Cow

ScumLord wrote: »

I don't know if it's a known issue, just because 3 people you know developed a sweet tooth doesn't mean there's anything there.

If I was to guess I would say the body could just be craving extra calories because it's working overtime supplying the cancerous cells.

I know that 3 people doesn't mean anything statistically, that's why I was asking a wider audience to see if it was more prevalent. We reasoned that the reason they were craving sweet things was to feed the cancer.

Paddy Cow

Gran Hermano wrote: »

Coincidences.

Not all cancers are the same or have the same treatments.

I know all cancers are different and each of the three people had a different type of cancer.

Donkey Oaty

Interesting study here from a respected university.

Cancer cells’ sugar cravings arise partly because they turn off their mitochondria, power sources that burn glucose efficiently, in favor of a more inefficient mode of using glucose.

Never heard of it before, myself.

jane82

Paddy Cow wrote: »

I know all cancers are different and each of the three people had a different type of cancer.

But you could equally say from your sample you dont get cancer until you start eating a poor diet. Maybe the sweets caused the loss of hair growth and the cancer.
Maybe not useing shaving cream on your legs gives you cancer and a sweettooth.

flutered

i agree with the body hair and the cold items , the sugary stuff no, howeever i crave hot and spicey food, the taste beer and guinness have become putrid, i wonder do people realise the amount of baggage going with cancer.

The_B_Man

I read this the other day actually.
See Myth 4:
http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/don%E2%80%99t-believe-hype-%E2%80%93-10-persistent-cancer-myths-debunked

Paddy Cow

jane82 wrote: »

I would never notice if my leg hair was growing or not its been an inch long since I was 15. Am I missing something or have I had cancer for the last 17 years?

I know this is After Hours and you have to expect a certain amount of piss taking but this post is really taking the piss. One of the people I was referring to in my op is my mother. She had her tumour removed and we all hoped that was the end of the cancer. While waiting for her scan to confirm this, the hair on her legs stopped growing and she knew from past experience what this meant. The scan confirmed it. Her cancer was back and she is terminal.

I am simply asking if anyone has had similar experiences. I know that three people is not enough to draw conclusions from. Cancer is not funny and so please do not leave a "witty" reply. I'm not a mod and it's not my job to back seat moderate but I would like to think there are decent people out there who can leave constructive advice, even if it goes against my experiences with three people.

jane82

You should probably move it to long term illnesses so. I dont want to sound like Im acting the git but that was hardly an upsetting joke. It was an arguement to your new way to catch cancer. I will however bow out of this thread if its upsetting you.
Best of luck with your mother.

JerCotter7

I had neither of the two symptoms in the OP. I don't shave my legs so can't say for sure that they didn't stop growing but my beard kept grown so doubt it. Also I didn't have anymore of a sweet tooth than I would usually have.

ScumLord

Paddy Cow wrote: »

While waiting for her scan to confirm this, the hair on her legs stopped growing and she knew from past experience what this meant. The scan confirmed it. Her cancer was back and she is terminal.

That could just as easily have been stress, I can't imagine many things more stressful than waiting for a test result like that.

Paddy Cow

jane82 wrote: »

You should probably move it to long term illnesses so. I dont want to sound like Im acting the git but that was hardly an upsetting joke. It was an arguement to your new way to catch cancer. I will however bow out of this thread if its upsetting you.
Best of luck with your mother.

It wasn't an argument and neither was I advocating a new way to "catch cancer". I simply gave a summary of my experiences and asked if anyone had experienced the same. I was looking for experiences from other people so I could make sense of my own. Maybe they had the same, maybe they didn't. I didn't expect someone to take the p!ss and that is clearly what you were doing.

Paddy Cow

ScumLord wrote: »

That could just as easily have been stress, I can't imagine many things more stressful than waiting for a test result like that.

In her case it wasn't stress. Before she was given the official diagnosis, she noticed that her hair stopped growing. It was one of the signs to her that her body wasn't functioning as normal. After she had the tumour removed, her hair started growing back and we took this as a good sign. While we all waited for her check up scan (and we convinced ourselves she was fine), she later told us that the hair stopped growing and she knew what that meant

Bananatop

Haven't heard anything about people with cancer craving sweet stuff before OP. I do remember my Dad (when he had cancer) plowing through fudge though! Fits in with your observation.


All the best with your Ma, tough times ahead but you'll find you and your Ma are both stronger than you could ever imagine