A research team at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has found a link between fructose sugars and the growth of pancreatic cancer cells.

The research team was trying to understand whether the body processes glucose and fructose in the same way. The food industry has fought accusations that fructose sugar from sources like corn, which is commonly used in sugary soft drinks, is particularly unhealthy.

"I think this paper has a lot of public health implications," Dr. Anthony Heaney, an associate professor of medicine and neurosurgery and a Jonsson Cancer Center researcher, said. "Hopefully, at the federal level, there will be some effort to step back on the amount of HFCS in our diets."

The researchers took pancreatic tumor cells from patients and then added glucose to one set and fructose to another. They found that the cells used the simple sugars in different ways and concluded "that cancer cells can readily metabolize fructose to increase proliferation."

"The bottom line is the modern diet contains a lot of refined sugar including fructose, and it's a hidden danger implicated in a lot of modern diseases, such as obesity, diabetes and fatty liver," said Heaney. "In this study, we show that cancers can use fructose just as readily as glucose to fuel their growth."

Between 1970 and 1990, American consumption of high fructose corn syrup has increased by more than 1,000 percent, according to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The study is published in the Aug. 1 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Cancer Research and its abstract is available online.