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By Lucy Notarantonio
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A common dietary sugar may play an unexpected role in how ovarian cancer spreads after treatment.
About 21,010 women are expected to be diagnosed with ovarian cancer in the United States in 2026, according to the American Cancer Society, and approximately 12,450 women are projected to die from the disease.
A study from The Wistar Institute, published in Nature Aging, found that ovarian cancer cells that survive chemotherapy can release a sugar that appears to encourage nearby cancer cells to spread. The discovery could help explain why ovarian cancer often returns and may eventually lead to new approaches to treatment.
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Katherine Aird, Ph.D., professor and co-leader of the Molecular and Cellular Oncogenesis Program in the Ellen and Ronald Caplan Cancer Center at The Wistar Institute, and senior author of the study, told Newsweek: "While we have not tested this directly, our findings would suggest that only high concentrations of fructose would increase cancer spread."
Fructose Acts as a Signal for Cancer Spread
Researchers found that cancer cells that survived treatment produced fructose and used it as a signal to help nearby cancer cells spread. They also discovered that high levels of dietary fructose, similar to the amount found in sugary drinks, could encourage cancer to spread even without chemotherapy.
Because fructose is widely consumed in the U.S., particularly through high-fructose corn syrup, the findings suggest dietary habits may play a role in how cancer progresses. Unlike many cancer risk factors, fructose intake is something people can potentially reduce through lifestyle choices.
Aird told Newsweek: "When we give mice the high fructose diet, we do not observe big differences in the total amount of tumor.
"Instead, the high fructose seems to increase the likelihood of spread without changes in the tumor growth. It is important to note that additional studies would be needed to confirm this is generalizable to other tumor types."
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Does the Source of Fructose Matter?
Fructose is the same chemical compound whether it comes from fruit or processed foods. However, whole fruits contain fiber, water and other nutrients that slow digestion and reduce blood sugar spikes.
Examples of fruits lower in fructose include lemons, limes, avocados and berries, while apples, pears, mangoes, watermelon and grapes contain higher amounts.
Aird said: "When people eat fruit or other natural foods, the fructose is only in a small amount, and other components of those foods slow digestion to limit a sugar spike.
"In contrast, fructose from processed foods is at very high concentrations and is rapidly processed by the body."
Why Ovarian Cancer Often Returns
Although ovarian cancer often responds well to platinum-based chemotherapy, it returns in most patients and frequently spreads throughout the abdominal cavity. Researchers found that substances released by cancer cells that survived treatment were enough to significantly increase the ability of other cancer cells to spread.
"As far as we know, this is the first time anyone has shown, in a preclinical model rather than just a dish, that it's the molecules these cells release—not the cells themselves—that drive the cancer's spread," said Aidan Cole, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the Aird Laboratory and study author.
What Could the Findings Mean for Patients?
If future studies confirm the results in humans, Aird said the research could point to two potential strategies: limiting consumption of highly processed foods containing fructose and using an existing diabetes drug to reduce fructose production by cancer cells that survive chemotherapy.
"I can envision two interventions that could emerge from this preclinical work if we were to see the same results in humans," Aird said. "It would be important for cancer patients to monitor and limit consumption of highly processed, fructose-containing foods."
She added that an approved anti-diabetic drug could potentially be repurposed and used alongside chemotherapy to reduce the risk of cancer spreading, though more research is needed.
Questions Raised About Statins
The findings may also have implications for statins, cholesterol-lowering drugs taken by millions of Americans. In the study, statins weakened the connections between cancer cells, making it easier for them to break away, prompting researchers to investigate whether the drugs could affect the response to chemotherapy.
"We haven't tested this effect in patients yet, but it raises questions about combining cholesterol-lowering drugs with chemotherapy, especially since ovarian cancer is most common in postmenopausal women who are often already on statins," said Aird.
Reference
Cole, A.R., Buj, R., Uboveja, A. et al. The chemotherapy-induced senescence-associated secretome promotes cell detachment and metastatic dissemination through metabolic reprogramming. Nat Aging (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43587-026-01172-5
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Charlotte Nisbet and Emma Lee-Sang
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