Dietary palmitic acid increases cancer spread risk

A study published in the latest issue of the journal Nature reveals how palmitic acid alters cancer genomes, increasing the likelihood of cancer spreading

Metastasis or spread of cancer cells is still the leading cause of death in cancer patients, and the vast majority of patients with metastatic cancer can only be treated, not cured

A fatty acid commonly found in palm oil, palmitic acid, promotes the metastasis of oral cancer and melanoma skin cancer in mice, according to new research from the Institute of Biomedicine (IRB) in Barcelona, ​​Spain

The study found that when palmitic acid was supplemented in the mice's diet, it not only promoted metastasis, but also had long-term effects on the genome

The researchers found that this "memory" is caused by epigenetic changes

IRB Professor Salvador Aznar Benita, who led the study, said it was too early to determine which diets patients with metastatic cancer could adopt to slow things down

Dr Helen Rippen, chief executive of Global Cancer Research, the UK charity that funded the project, said: "This discovery is a huge breakthrough in our understanding of how diet and cancer are linked, and more importantly, maybe we can use This knowledge starts new cancer treatments

Editor-in-Chief

Changes in fatty acid intake and metabolism have long been thought to be involved in cancer metastasis, the process by which cancer cells spread to other parts of the body