Medical

Harvard study finds fatty diets may feed cancer and starve immune cells

Harvard study finds fatty diets may feed cancer and starve immune cells
Levels of CD8+ T cells (red) in tumors (cyan) appear to be higher in mice on lower-fat diets (top row) than those on high-fat diets (bottom row)
Levels of CD8+ T cells (red) in tumors (cyan) appear to be higher in mice on lower-fat diets (top row) than those on high-fat diets (bottom row)
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Levels of CD8+ T cells (red) in tumors (cyan) appear to be higher in mice on lower-fat diets (top row) than those on high-fat diets (bottom row)
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Levels of CD8+ T cells (red) in tumors (cyan) appear to be higher in mice on lower-fat diets (top row) than those on high-fat diets (bottom row)

Obesity has long been linked to cancer, but the complete picture still eludes scientists. Now, a new study from Harvard highlights some missing pieces of the puzzle, finding that cancer cells can use the higher fat availability to starve immune cells of fuel and prevent them from targeting tumors.

High-fat diets are known to increase the risk for many types of cancer, and reduce treatment outcomes and survival rates. For instance, previous studies have found that obesity may promote metastasis in otherwise benign cancers, and fatty tissues can provide “hideouts” for cancer stem cells, allowing them to come roaring back after chemotherapy. But it's not that simple either – paradoxically, obesity appears to improve outcomes for some types of cancer treatments.

In the new study, Harvard researchers found that high-fat diets seem to reduce the amount of CD8+ T cells, as well as their cancer-fighting abilities. When fat is more readily available, tumors will rewire their metabolism to gobble it up. The high energy content accelerates their growth, while at the same time depriving T cells of fuel which they would otherwise use to fight cancer.

“We now know there is a metabolic tug-of-war between T cells and tumor cells that changes with obesity,” says Arlene Sharpe, co-senior author of the study. “Our study provides a roadmap to explore this interplay, which can help us to start thinking about cancer immunotherapies and combination therapies in new ways.”

The team studied this complex relationship in mice with different types of cancer, by feeding some groups high-fat diets and comparing the microenvironments around their tumors to those of mice eating normal diets. They found that tumors grew much faster in the obese mice, but interestingly, that only applied to mice with immunogenic cancers – those that the immune system responds to more readily.

The researchers also noticed that in obese mice, the tumor microenvironment contained far fewer free fatty acids, even though their numbers were very high throughout the rest of the body. This led the team to discover that the cancer cells were increasing their fat uptake, leaving none for the CD8+ T cells.

“The paradoxical depletion of fatty acids was one of the most surprising findings of this study,” says Alison Ringel, co-first author of the study. “It really blew us away and it was the launch pad for our analyses. That obesity and whole-body metabolism can change how different cells in tumors utilize fuel was an exciting discovery, and our metabolic atlas now allows us to dissect and better understand these processes.”

In other tests, when the team eliminated CD8+ T cells from mice, their diet no longer affected the rate of tumor growth.

Through further work, the researchers zeroed in on a protein called PHD3, which in normal cells slows down fat metabolism. PHD3 levels were found to be significantly lower in cancer cells in obese environments than otherwise, and when the scientists overexpressed the protein in tumors they grew more slowly and couldn’t take up as much fat.

All up, the researchers say that the new discoveries could help improve cancer immunotherapy. After all, CD8+ T cells are used in CAR-T cell therapy, where samples of a patient’s immune cells are removed, supercharged against cancer and reintroduced to the body. PHD3, or another related protein, could become a new therapeutic target. The find could also help personalize other cancer therapies for obese patients.

The research was published in the journal Cell.

Source: Harvard

7 comments
7 comments
bahbah
What type of fats were in these high fat diets? We have a whole spectrum from toxic trans fats, to saturated, polyunsaturated, and mono-saturated. We know trans fats cause systemic inflammation, and when chronic causes cancer, while ALA and DHA omega-3 fats do the opposite. How can the Harvard authors not refer to what type of fats?
Brad
The science doesn't link diet to cancer, it links obesity to cancer. They aren't the same thing.
akarp
@bahbah: because sugar runs the world and our "food" supply.
clay
Follow the money.

It saddens me to write this and yet it must be repeated: The "studies" published by professors and teams at Harvard and many other name-brand research universities *MUST* be considered with GREAT trepidation. The origins of their economic lubricity are cause for legitimate bias concern.

Big companies and big industry associations pay BIG money to validate their profitable orientations.

I am 100% for the Free Market and because of this, I recognize the need for authenticity in these publications. Make money by doing whats good, find a way... but these same organizations killed off the greatest french fry in history (the McDonalds French Fry, of course)! Replacing healthy animal and fruit-meat fats with "heart healthy" hydrogenated oils... and vegetable/seed oils (neither of which are good for humans).

I am sure good things come from Ivy league research departments and yet so do economically biased reports... And thus we need to carefully consider what they claim.
Dan Lee
This is very confusing. It seems to say obesity is related to a high fat diet, when obesity is obviously related to sugar and grains. I have to think that there is a connection between Harvard and big agriculture, obviously because to feed the world cheaply we need to feed people grain, feed animals grain, and steer them away from expensive fats, such as grass fed animals in which the omega 3-6 profile is vastly different from grain fed animals. It is a problem to know that the ability to feed people on a mass scale is going to kill them, but that politically, that can't be shared with the public at large (no pun intended).
Eric Blenheim
The high fat Ketogenic diet and the numerous anecdotal accounts of people being cured from cancer by using that diet to do so say differently.
ETO
This is a very unhelpful article. It confuses people with the title.
Disregulated metabolism and obesity are risk factors for cancer. A healthy well balanced ketogenic diet is an effective therapy for obesity and will bring blood glucose towards normal levels over time.
Good fats are missing from western diets for the most part and this story seems willfully misleading. I've been a reader of New Altas for many years, going back to Gizmag days and this is disappointing to read another "study" that seems to have an agenda.
Totay agree with Clay. The US has lost its integrity in healthcare science.