This may be important in an isolated environment, but cancer does not arise in a petri dish. Instead nutrients are rarely a limiting factor in the human body – there is plenty of glucose and amino acids everywhere. There’s lots of available energy and building blocks so there is no selective pressure to maximize ATP yield. Cancer cells perhaps use some glucose for energy and some for biomass to support expansion. In an isolated system, it may make sense to use some resources for bricks and some for construction workers. However, the body is not such a system. The burgeoning breast cancer cell, for example, with access to the blood stream, which has both glucose for energy and amino acids and fat for building cells.

It also does not make any sense of the link with obesity, where there are plenty of building blocks around. In this situation, cancer should maximize glucose for energy, since it can easily obtain building blocks. Thus, it is debatable whether this explanation of the Warburg Effect plays any role in cancer’s origin.

There is an interesting corollary, however. What if nutrient stores were significantly depleted? That is, if we are able to activate our nutrient sensors to signal ‘low energy’ then the cell would face selective pressure to maximize energy production (ATP) moving away from cancer’s preferred aerobic glycolysis. If we lower insulin and mTOR, while increasing AMPK. There is a simple dietary manipulation that does this – fasting. Ketogenic diets, while lowering insulin, will still activate the other nutrient sensors mTOR and AMPK.
— 読み進める www.dietdoctor.com/warburg-effect-cancer

The Warburg Effect and cancer – Diet Doctor

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