Obesity promotes tumor growth regardless of diet – Scientists

 

Scientists have  again discovered a new explanation as to why obese patients with cancer often have a poorer prognosis compared with those who are lean.

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The explanation was reported in a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research known as Cancer Research.
The new study clearly established that there is a link between obesity and cancer incidence.
According to an Associate Professor at the Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Mikhail Kolonin, for several cancers, obesity is associated with a poorer prognosis.
In the study, Kolonin and his colleagues evaluated how obesity promotes cancer progression. Kolonin and his colleagues explained that  their earlier studies led them to hypothesize that fat tissue called white adipose tissue, which is the fat tissue that expands in individuals who are obese, was itself directly involved and that it was not just diet and lifestyle that are important.
Their initial results confirmed this hypothesis: In obese and lean mice that ate the same diet, tumors grew much faster in obese mice than they did in lean mice. The researchers also observed that there were far more white adipose tissue cells called adipose stromal cells in obese mice than in lean mice and thus turned their focus on the role of these cells.
Detailed analyses indicated cancer induced mobilisation of adipose stromal cells into the circulation. Once in the tumors, some of these cells developed into fat cells, while others were incorporated into tumor-associated blood vessels.
Tumor-associated blood vessels support tumor growth by bringing in oxygen and nutrients vital for cancer cell survival and proliferation.
Kolonin noted that the ability of adipose stromal cells to contribute to the formation of tumor-associated blood vessels is likely one of the main reasons that the excess of these cells in tumors was associated with increased malignant cell proliferation and tumor growth.
The latest data provided the first in vivo evidence of recruitment of cells from endogenous fat tissue to tumors.
However, the fact that these cells are present in tumors is still an emerging concept.
According to the scientists, “We have shown that not only are they present, but they are also functional and affect tumor growth.”
The scientists were also of the view that identifying the signals that cause these cells to be recruited to tumors and finding ways to block them might provide a new avenue of cancer treatment.”

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