By Nick
Lavars
April 14, 2020
A new study has
highlighted how exercise can intervene in the onset of liver cancer in high-risk
individuals
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The benefits of regular exercise
in maintaining health and wellbeing are well known, and recent research has
pointed to the role it can play in preventing or even combating cancer.
The new study conducted by researchers at the Australian National University (ANU)
sought to dive a little deeper into this, and if exercise could prevent liver
cancer in those already at high risk.
“We know exercise helps reduce
rates of some cancers already but we wanted to find out if exercise would reduce
liver cancer rates when there is a high risk of developing it,” says ANU’s
Professor Farrell. “For example, if you have had or have hepatitis C, cirrhosis
and you're a type 2 diabetic you have really a very high rate of liver cancer.”
Specifically, the team studied
how fatty liver disease linked to obesity and type 2 diabetes can act as a
precursor to liver cancer, and how exercise could break this chain of negative
health outcomes. Mice were engineered to over-eat in order to develop obesity
and type 2 diabetes, with the rodents then injected with cancer-causing agents
early in life.
Half of these mice were given a
running wheel and the other half were not, condemning them to a sedentary
existence. The active mice ran up to 40 km (25 mi) a day, which slowed down
their weight gain somewhat. While they did still go on to develop obesity after
six months, they were in far better health than the sedentary group of mice.
“Nearly all the mice that did not
exercise developed cancer within six months,” says Professor Farrell. “Among the
mice that exercised none developed liver cancer in six months, showing that
exercise prevented early onset of liver cancer.”
The scientists observed a
reduction in the severity of fatty liver disease in the mice that exercised,
along with a reduction in activity of a stress-related signaling molecule called
JNK1. This molecular pathway is thought to play a role in altering liver cells
as they develop into cancers, and the study suggests that it could be switched
off via regular exercise.
“We now have some robust evidence
to show exercise will help – especially for those who are overweight with type 2
diabetes,” says Professor Farrell. “We also started to unravel some of the
molecular pathways involved, and the benefit of that is that we can design drugs
to interrupt those pathways.”
The research was published in
the Journal
of Hepatology.
Source: https://newatlas.com/medical/exercise-prevent-liver-cancer-high-risk/Australian
National University, EurekAlert