Could intermittent fasting reduce breast cancer risk in obesity?
New research finds that time-restricted feeding boosts insulin levels and reduces tumor growth on mice with obesity-driven postmenopausal breast cancer.
The study discovered that tumor growth was driven and accelerated by elevated insulin levels in the mice.
It also found that lowering the mice’s insulin levels and increasing their metabolic well being had an anti-tumor result.
“Time-restricted eating includes a positive effect on metabolic health and will not trigger the hunger and irritability that is connected with long-term fasting or calorie restriction,” says Dr. Manasi Das, postdoctoral fellow at the University of California (UC), San Diego and first author.
“Through its beneficial metabolic effects, time-restricted eating may also provide an inexpensive, simple to adopt but effective technique to prevent and inhibit breast cancer without needing a change in diet or exercise.”
- Dr. Manasi Das
The analysis - conducted by researchers at the UC NORTH PARK School of Medicine, Moores Cancer Center, and Veterans Affairs NORTH PARK Health care System (VASDHS) - appears in Nature Communications.
Obesity and cancer
Having overweight or unhealthy weight increases the threat of developing at least 13 types of cancer.
More research is essential, but obesity seems to disrupt circadian rhythms, the body’s internal clocks that control 24-hour rhythms in gene expression and daily behaviors.
When the body’s circadian rhythms are thrown off, it could change how the body responds to insulin. Insulin is definitely a hormone produced by the pancreas that can help regulate blood sugar.
These changes could cause a person to be insulin resistant or develop metabolic syndrome, both which may increase the threat of developing some chronic diseases, such as for example cancer.
Circadian clock disruptions also may actually promote tumor expansion by interfering with the cell cycle and activity of cells that suppress tumor expansion.
Recent research has discovered that there seems to be a particularly strong connection between obesity and breast cancer.
The impact of obesity on breast cancer is incredibly complex, in fact it is still being investigated. Nevertheless, several factors seem to be to contribute to how weight problems impacts the risk of developing breast tumor.
Of the potential influencing factors, menopausal status appears to be especially important. Research shows that weight problems consistently raises the chance of breast tumor, and the opportunity of poor outcomes, in postmenopausal women of all ages.
In light of the finding, research teams have already been trying to uncover precisely how obesity is connected with breast cancer. Their results could have essential implications for thousands of people.
In line with the American Cancer Culture, in the United States alone, some 1 in 8 females will get a diagnosis of invasive breast cancer tumor in their lifetime, and in around 1 in 39 cases, it will be fatal.
Moreover, based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 42.4% of adults moving into the U.S. got obesity in 2017-2018. The age-adjusted prevalence of severe obesity is also higher in women than men.
The study
Previous research on mice discovered that eating a high fat diet in a time-restricted feeding (TRF) schedule appears to reduce or reverse negative health problems linked to obesity. A few little pilot research in humans yielded similar outcomes.
Several of these complications, such as excess fat gain, circadian rhythm disruptions, metabolic changes, and inflammation, boost the risk of developing cancer.
TRF (in animals), or perhaps time-restricted eating (TRE) (found in humans), is a type of intermittent fasting where diet is restricted to a specific number of hours each day consistent with circadian rhythms. Generally, this means eating limited to 6-12 hours per day during the instances a person is normally most active.
In the new study, experts were investigating whether TRF would impact the growth and development of tumors and reduce the risk of breast cancer metastasizing to the lungs in mice with obesity-driven breast cancer.
To get this done, they caused female mice to develop hormonal circumstances similar to those women experience following menopause.
In addition they gave two sets of mice unrestricted usage of high fat foods for 10 weeks prior to the trial began to create them obese. Another band of mice, the control group, was given common chow throughout this era.
Through the trial, one group of mice continuing to have unrestricted usage of high fat foods, as the control group still had unrestricted usage of normal chow.
The final group of mice, who were fed on a TRF schedule, had usage of high fat foods only for 8 hours at night time. It is during the night that mice will be naturally most active.
In another the main study, experts also tested to check out whether TRF decreased tumor growth and spread in the mice with obesity that were injected with breast cancer cells or induced tumors.
The team discovered that TRF appeared to reduce obesity-enhanced breast tumor growth without reducing calorie consumption. It also seemed to reduce the risk of developing breast cancers, plus the threat of it spreading to the lungs.
The researchers claim these results are likely because of the fact that TRF improved circadian disruptions and metabolic problems associated with obesity.
“We could actually increase insulin sensitivity, reduce hyperinsulinemia, restore circadian rhythms, and reduce tumor growth by simply modifying when and for how very long mice had usage of food,” says senior author Dr. Nicholas Webster, a professor at UC NORTH PARK School of Drugs and senior study career scientist at VASDHS.
Researchers now have to confirm their results on a more substantial scale and in humans. They will also need to figure out how TRF impacts men, along with other types of cancer.
However, the researchers say their benefits warrant clinical trials in humans.
TRE can offer millions of individuals a easier, more accessible approach to reduce their threat of becoming ill or perhaps dying.
Carrying out a TRE schedule will not involve reducing diet or making dietary constraints. A previous study in mice also discovered that carrying out a TRE schedule for 5 days weekly was enough to create positive effects, that could allow for some more flexible ingesting behaviors on weekends.
Many people cannot invest in major lifestyle and nutritional changes, the researchers say, or do not follow them strictly.
“Our data shows that a person might benefit from simply timing their meals differently to prevent breast cancer rather than changing what they take in,” says Dr. Das.
Source: www.medicalnewstoday.com
