Theriau CF & Connor ML. Voluntary physical activity counteracts the proliferative tumor growth microenvironment created by adipose tissue via high-fat diet feeding in female rats. Physiol Rep. 2017, July, 5(13): e13325.
Significance of the research: "Breast cancer is a multi-factoral disease that is impacted by many modifiable risk factors, including adopting a healthy lifestyle. Obesity arises in part by poor behaviours including eating an unhealthy diet and becoming less physically active. Unfortunately, there has been a known association between obesity and breast cancer for more than 60 years. This suggests that modification of an individual’s body weight may represent a new area of cancer intervention. Research has shown that fat cells are more than merely a way that our body stores excess energy that we eat, but the actually produce compounds that can affect cell growth. Our study looks at the effects of the nutrition supplement Resveratrol, which is found in high concentration in the skin of red grapes, on counteracting the growth promoting effects of fat cells on breast cancer in obese animals. Briefly, 6-weeks of resveratrol treatment completely counteracted the effects of obesity on breast cancer growth to the point that the fat caused growth inhibitory effects on the breast cancer cells, similar to what is seen when using fat cells from lean individuals. The exciting part is that these effects, although similar to those we've seen with exercise and diet interventions, occurred in the absence of any weight loss. Therefore, these results agree with our previous work that it's not necessarily the amount of fat (lean vs obese) that's important but how the fat "behaves" that's important. This has important relevance to obese breast cancer patients as it points to being able to give the patients the benefits of being lean without having to undergo a weight loss regimen, a process that may be difficult for a cancer patient depending on the overall health of the individual. It also has the benefit of giving a rationale for the development of new drugs that target the patient rather than the cancer itself, which may make such drugs relevant for a much larger range of cancers."