Do cancer cells really use 15x more sugar? Yes, many cancer cells consume far more glucose than healthy cells by overexpressing glucose transporters and insulin receptors. But they’re not efficient at using it. Instead of generating 36 ATP per glucose like healthy cells, cancer cells only make ~2 ATP , about 94% less efficient. Which is huge! Most of that sugar is dumped as lactate, a process called the Warburg Effect. It’s like filling a bucket full of holes - sugar comes in, but most of the energy potential is lost. According to a study from the Siteman Cancer Center (Patti et al., 2022), cancer cells aren’t intentionally wasting glucose, they try to metabolize it through mitochondria, but get overwhelmed. The system gets saturated, forcing them to dump excess as lactate. (“Sugar metabolism is surprisingly conventional in cancer” – siteman.wustl.edu/sugar-metabolism-is-surprisingly-conventional-in-cancer) In many major cancers like breast, brain, lung, pancreatic, colorec...