Cancer Research UK has recently launched a new campaign to raise awareness of obesity as the biggest preventable cause of cancer after smoking in the UK. More than 1 in 20 cancer cases are caused by excess weight, and one of the most common types of cancer linked to obesity is bowel cancer. Research has shown that fat is highly active, sending out signals that tell cells in the body to divide more rapidly – which can lead to cancer.
At Sheffield Hallam’s Biomolecular Sciences Research Centre, PhD student Rob Tempest has been studying whether particles called vesicles carry signals that allow bowel cancer cells and fat to communicate. These vesicles could explain why fat helps bowel cancer to grow.
Director of studies for this project, Dr Nick Peake, explained that “researchers have already shown vesicles from fat cells can cause bowel cancer cells to grow more quickly. We now also think that vesicles from bowel cancer cells cause changes to fat cells – turning them into factories providing growth factors and energy to the cancer cells, which help them to multiply”. Although the research is at an early stage, Nick and Rob hope that linking vesicles from bowel cancer to fat might help to develop new ways to treat the disease by breaking this communication, and to allow earlier detection of bowel cancer in high-risk patients since they can be easily measured in the blood.
Physical activity can assist in the prevention of cancer
What is the effect of obesity on the treatment of cancer?
Liam Humphreys (research fellow, Centre for Sport and Exercise Science):
“Obesity has a negative effect on a patient’s treatment. Obese patients with cancer have an increased risk of surgical complications (poor wound healing, infection, and need for repeated intervention) and an increased risk of toxicities from chemotherapy, which results in lowering the dose. Recently, researchers at the Centre for Sport and Exercise Science have been developing prehabilitation interventions. Prehabilitation is the process of enhancing an individual’s capacity to enable them to cope with their treatment. Prehabilitation is also an emerging research area that involves a multimodal approach to wellbeing. In obese patients, simply losing weight is not necessarily the answer. Maintaining lean body mass is essential (cancer patients are at risk of sarcopenia and/ or cancer cachexia) so exercise and nutritional support are important.”
Dr Katie Pickering (postdoctoral researcher, Centre for Sport and Exercise Science):
“In addition, excess body fat and physically inactive lifestyles increase breast cancer risk, whereas being regularly physically active can help to reduce the risk. Physical activity and healthy dietary behaviours are important lifestyle factors in weight management, whilst their role in improving the quality of breast cancer survivorship is being investigated in the North of England Women’s Diet and ActivitY After Breast Cancer (NEWDAY-ABC) trial. This research collaboration between SHU and Northumbria University is funded by Yorkshire Cancer Research. NEWDAY-ABC seeks to understand the barriers and facilitators women treated for oestrogen positive breast cancer have in leading an active lifestyle post treatment. Along with providing women recovering from breast cancer with the skills needed for long term weight management, NEWDAY-ABC also aims to gain novel insight into the link between body composition (body fat, lean body mass) and blood-borne biomarkers such as hormones and inflammatory markers that influence the risk of future disease recurrence.”
Sheffield Hallam University’s Enabling Healthier Lives campaign
From ground-breaking research to extensive and pioneering training programmes, Sheffield Hallam University is a national leader in creating innovative solutions that enable healthier lives. Our research, whether that be virtual reality to treat burns patients or developing bras designed for women undergoing breast radiotherapy, is rooted in working with partners to provide practical solutions for tackling today’s health challenges.
You can join our campaign on Twitter by using the #enablinghealthierlives hashtag.
