A student at the University of Otago's medical school in Christchurch has discovered an ominous link between obesity and breast cancer.
It was in a simple laboratory that the possibly groundbreaking breast cancer link was made. Researchers have been looking at the relationship between fat cells and breast cancer cells and found one definitely affects the other.
"Basically we found one of the proteins that one of the fat cells secretes and puts out into the immediate area, which allows the cancer cells to migrate and grow faster," says Dr Elisabeth Phillips.
That means fatty tissue plays a role in making breast tumours more invasive and likely to spread.
The research was funded by the New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation and the local Cancer Society.
"Most previous research has focused on how obesity affects the whole body physiology and changes the environment for the tumour to grow in, and we're looking very locally at the fat cells within the breast tumour and that is quite novel," says Dr Margaret Currie.
Dr Currie says although the findings are preliminary, medical experts are excited as to where they may lead.
"Of course we've got a long way to go to find out how it really works in patients, but ultimately of course we want to improve the outcome of chemotherapy in obese and overweight breast cancer patients."
There'll be many more hours in the laboratory just yet for the groundbreaking scientists, but it seems their discovery is another important step for breast cancer treatment.
3 News
source: newshub archive
