Wednesday, January 01, 2025

Research reveals how fructose in diet enhances tumor growth

What is your New Year's resolution? Cancer is history (soon)!

"... New research ... shows that dietary fructose promotes tumor growth in animal models of melanoma, breast cancer and cervical cancer. However, fructose does not directly fuel tumors, according to the study ...

began their investigation by feeding tumor-bearing animals a diet rich in fructose, then measuring how quickly their tumors grew. The researchers found that added fructose promoted tumor growth without changing body weight, fasting glucose or fasting insulin levels. ...

"Over the past few years, it's become clear that many cancer cells prefer to take up lipids rather than make them," ... "The complication is that most lipids are insoluble in blood and require rather complex transport mechanisms. LPCs are unique. They might provide the most effective and efficient way to support tumor growth." ..."

From the abstract:
"Fructose consumption has increased considerably over the past five decades, largely due to the widespread use of high-fructose corn syrup as a sweetener. It has been proposed that fructose promotes the growth of some tumours directly by serving as a fuel. Here we show that fructose supplementation enhances tumour growth in animal models of melanoma, breast cancer and cervical cancer without causing weight gain or insulin resistance. The cancer cells themselves were unable to use fructose readily as a nutrient because they did not express ketohexokinase-C (KHK-C). Primary hepatocytes did express KHK-C, resulting in fructolysis and the excretion of a variety of lipid species, including lysophosphatidylcholines (LPCs). In co-culture experiments, hepatocyte-derived LPCs were consumed by cancer cells and used to generate phosphatidylcholines, the major phospholipid of cell membranes.
In vivo, supplementation with high-fructose corn syrup increased several LPC species by more than sevenfold in the serum. Administration of LPCs to mice was sufficient to increase tumour growth. Pharmacological inhibition of ketohexokinase had no direct effect on cancer cells, but it decreased circulating LPC levels and prevented fructose-mediated tumour growth in vivo. These findings reveal that fructose supplementation increases circulating nutrients such as LPCs, which can enhance tumour growth through a cell non-autonomous mechanism."

Research reveals how fructose in diet enhances tumor growth




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