Linking obesity and colon cancer

May

Category:Colon Cancer Tags:Colon Cancer, obesity

A chemical produced by fat cells, stimulates the development of colon cancer, suggests a U.S. study. In the British Journal of Surgery may help explain why severely overweight people appear to have a high risk of developing the disease. A team at the University of California at San Diego found that the hormone leptin triggered an increase in the development of colon cancer cells in humans. Obese people are up to three times more likely to develop this type of cancer. In the laboratory Other studies had found that some colon cancer cells appear to be designed to respond to leptin, they possess "receptors" for the chemical on their surfaces. A greater number of fat cells, the more leptin will be the person in your bloodstream. The San Diego

team wanted to find more evidence of this link through the observation of what happened to human cancer cells exposed to the hormone. In a laboratory, they added the hormone to different types of cancer cells. It was noted that growth stimulated in all cells, and in two out of three, the hormone also hampered the usual process of programmed death that allows the body to replace normal cells, a process which often malfunctions in cancers. Dr Kim Barret, who led the study said: "These results could explain why obesity increases the risk of someone suffering from colon cancer." "The fact of having shown how leptin stimulates these cells means that drug companies are in a better position to develop new treatments for disease."

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