Being 'hyouge' improves cancer treatment

Know someone with cancer? Tell them to stfu and squat.


— Lean muscle-mass may give even obese people an advantage in battling cancer, a University of Alberta study shows.

The study, published in Lancet Oncology, provides evidence that varying body compositions of cancer patients likely plays a role in survival rates, activity levels during the illness and potentially, even the reaction to chemotherapy treatment.

Computed tomography images of 250 obese cancer patients were viewed in the study, and findings indicate that people with a condition called sarcopenic obesity—a depletion of lean muscle mass, paired with being severely overweight—lived an average of 10 months less than their counterparts who were obese, but who had more muscle mass.

They also tended to more often be bedridden and have worse physical function than people who did not have sarcopenic obesity.

"In many cases, people with sarcopenic obesity have as little or sometimes less muscle mass than thin people who look as of they were made of skin and bones," noted Vickie Baracos, a professor of oncology and adjunct professor of human nutrition at the University of Alberta, and lead author on the study.

The findings underscore the importance of including body composition when assessing patient prognosis, Baracos said. Factors like lean muscle-mass could even play a part in how these patients react to chemotherapy, and drug dosing could potentially be improved, she added. "It remains to be proven whether tailored doses of chemotherapy would improve treatment, but that's possible based on what we've seen in this study."

"With obesity reaching new levels, new concepts relating to body weight must be explored," Baracos said. "People's body compositions were less variable in the past and the condition of sarcopenic obesity is a recently recognized phenomenon."

The study was funded in part by the Canadian Institute for Health Research, the Alberta Cancer Foundation and the Translational Research Training in Cancer Program.

Key word obese.

tim290280 said:

Key word obese.

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Not necessarily... sure it was done in the obese, but there's little reason to think that it wouldn't be of benefit for the non obese, as the cancer/bed rest is likely to bring considerable muscle wasting.

Ironslave said:

Not necessarily... sure it was done in the obese, but there's little reason to think that it wouldn't be of benefit for the non obese, as the cancer/bed rest is likely to bring considerable muscle wasting.

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I agree! And as far as I know there's a study that shows a connection between strength (gripstrength) and life expectancy; the stronger you are the longer you live. That also supports your 'theory' IS.

Essensen said:

I agree! And as far as I know there's a study that shows a connection between strength (gripstrength) and life expectancy; the stronger you are the longer you live. That also supports your 'theory' IS.

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There is a lot of work on gripstrength as an indicator of aging. As far as I understand this is because fatigue and strength decreases occur in the muscles of the distal phalanges first. With aging these muscles recover and turn over more slowly, mainly due to poorer circulation and lower hormone levels reaching the area.

So strength isn't so much the indicator of life expectancy as it is about frailty. I'm not sure if the strength is relative either. So it may be your drop off in strength not whether you are stronger than your peers, not sure.

Essensen said:

I agree! And as far as I know there's a study that shows a connection between strength (gripstrength) and life expectancy; the stronger you are the longer you live. That also supports your 'theory' IS.

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Well not quite . There are so many other factors involved.

tim290280 said:

There is a lot of work on gripstrength as an indicator of aging. As far as I understand this is because fatigue and strength decreases occur in the muscles of the distal phalanges first. With aging these muscles recover and turn over more slowly, mainly due to poorer circulation and lower hormone levels reaching the area.

So strength isn't so much the indicator of life expectancy as it is about frailty. I'm not sure if the strength is relative either. So it may be your drop off in strength not whether you are stronger than your peers, not sure.

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Not so sure I agree with this. I think proportionally during aging (sarcopenia) there's be more of a loss in strength of larger muscle fibers, specifically those with higher type IIa and IIx content, which would be under used with aging (not many 60 year olds are out bench pressing). This is largely due to the process called "motor unit remodeling", where the neurons can actually die, and fibers subsequently die as well, or become reinervatd by other neurons, more often slow ones. (to my knowledge, this is the only actual reinnervation of muscle fibers in humans).

Though, I'd imagine that arthritis in the hands, a common occurrence, would throw a wrench in this process.

Ironslave said:

Not so sure I agree with this. I think proportionally during aging (sarcopenia) there's be more of a loss in strength of larger muscle fibers, specifically those with higher type IIa and IIx content, which would be under used with aging (not many 60 year olds are out bench pressing). This is largely due to the process called "motor unit remodeling", where the neurons can actually die, and fibers subsequently die as well, or become reinervatd by other neurons, more often slow ones. (to my knowledge, this is the only actual reinnervation of muscle fibers in humans).

Though, I'd imagine that arthritis in the hands, a common occurrence, would throw a wrench in this process.

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I was hoping you'd have a better understanding. I've only ever skimmed the aging stuff and made the mental note grip test for aging.

I was under the impression the loss of fibres was more uniform across all types and was related to declining hormone production. So it's more like declining hormones due to loss of muscle predominantly type II. So sarcopenia should be able to be offset if activity/lifting is continued throughout life. But I wonder to what level.....

Arthritis is a pretty crappy one. Another reason not to do silly shit in the weight room.

tim290280 said:

I was hoping you'd have a better understanding. I've only ever skimmed the aging stuff and made the mental note grip test for aging.

I was under the impression the loss of fibres was more uniform across all types and was related to declining hormone production. So it's more like declining hormones due to loss of muscle predominantly type II. So sarcopenia should be able to be offset if activity/lifting is continued throughout life. But I wonder to what level.....

Arthritis is a pretty crappy one. Another reason not to do silly shit in the weight room.

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Yep, decline in hormone levels plays a role. Another MAJOR one is satellite cell "depletion" from the basement membrane. There is a finite number of these available for repair (which actually, I've wondered if bodybuilders are making themselves more susceptible for cancer and many other diseases later in life, due to more satellite cells being used for muscular hypertrophy, and less available in cell cycle repair.)

There is also debate between human and rat studies. Obviously, rat studies are much more feasible to perform, both from an ethical standpoint, and the shorter lifespan. But, there is debate on if humans and rats respond similarly with regards to aging associated sarcopenia.

The hormonal decline and skeletal atrophy is an interesting thought, in a sense, it's a chicken and egg type of thought. I'd think that it's safe to say that mostly declines in hormones precede skeletal atrophy. The loss of type II fibers would probably be mostly due to under use.

The ATP-dependent ubiquitin proteasome pathway becomes expressed to a much larger extend during old age, hense the rapid decline in muscle mass from around 50-65 years of age. But exercise would certainly offset this.

Ironslave said:

Yep, decline in hormone levels plays a role. Another MAJOR one is satellite cell "depletion" from the basement membrane. There is a finite number of these available for repair (which actually, I've wondered if bodybuilders are making themselves more susceptible for cancer and many other diseases later in life, due to more satellite cells being used for muscular hypertrophy, and less available in cell cycle repair.)

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Isn't telomere shortening something that occurs towards the end of the cell replication lifecycle and this declines with age? Such that you don't replace the cells and thus depletion will occur when cells can no longer divide and form new cells with long telomeres. So satellite cells being used up could occur but would be in those that are predisposed to premature aging (those people that age badly, go bald early, etc).

There is also debate between human and rat studies. Obviously, rat studies are much more feasible to perform, both from an ethical standpoint, and the shorter lifespan. But, there is debate on if humans and rats respond similarly with regards to aging associated sarcopenia.

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And this isn't going to be sorted out any time soon unless we can get some volunteers to be human guinee pigs......

The hormonal decline and skeletal atrophy is an interesting thought, in a sense, it's a chicken and egg type of thought. I'd think that it's safe to say that mostly declines in hormones precede skeletal atrophy. The loss of type II fibers would probably be mostly due to under use.

The ATP-dependent ubiquitin proteasome pathway becomes expressed to a much larger extend during old age, hense the rapid decline in muscle mass from around 50-65 years of age. But exercise would certainly offset this.

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Well lets both keep lifting untill we die and publish a posthumous paper on the full body analysis they do.

tim290280 said:

Isn't telomere shortening something that occurs towards the end of the cell replication lifecycle and this declines with age? Such that you don't replace the cells and thus depletion will occur when cells can no longer divide and form new cells with long telomeres. So satellite cells being used up could occur but would be in those that are predisposed to premature aging (those people that age badly, go bald early, etc).

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Well, telomeres protect the cell from improper adhesion during replication, and they do get shorter with each replication (they themselves are not replicated). So basically, the shorter the telomere, the "older" the cell is. Satellite cells lack telomerase though (1), which limits their ability to replicate.

Thing with muscle cells though, they don't replicate. They are stuck in the G0 phase of the cell cycle, thus telomerase is a better indicator of "cell age" in cells which replicate frequently, the digestive lining comes to mind. It's a tricky area of research as many muscle cells that have been "repaired" by satellite cells which are born after many replications of precursor cells. To my knowledge (2), telomerase in the myonuclei itself doesn't really change with age (which again theoretically, makes sense, since the fiber isn't dividing).

Tough to also really isolate the interpersonal differences in the aging (and associated process). There are numerous factors, but the androgen DHT is largely associated with male baldness. Testosterone levels decrease with age, as most of us know, but some of this is related to the excess conversion of testosterone into DHT, by the enzyme 5-alpha-reductase (5AR). This is complex regulation, as levels of some hormones activate 5AR, others suppress it (progesterone tends to decline with age, which itself is a 5-AR inhibitor).

Hope this helped clear some things up a bit more.

1) Bone Marrow Transplant. 2003 Nov;32(9):947-52
Constitution and telomere dynamics of bone marrow stromal cells in patients undergoing allogeneic bone marrow transplantation.
Lee JJ, Nam CE, Kook H, Maciejewski JP, Kim YK, Chung IJ, Park KS, Lee IK, Hwang TJ, Kim HJ


2) Replicative potential and telomere length in human skeletal muscle: implications for satellite cell-mediated gene therapy.Hum Gene Ther. 1997 Aug 10;8(12):1429-38.

We are a species built for physical activity. It is our pre-disposition and when we go against this pre-disposition, it should come as no surprise that there are adverse health effects.

^^ that is really true, our life expectancy right now is too low for the age we live in, we have all the studies and all the supps and right foods to eat, so we are supposed to live easilty in the eighties right? but thanx to smoking obesity etc its quite the contrary...

I like these discussions.