Recent groundbreaking research has arrived at a startling and paradoxical discovery: obesity can improve overall survival of kidney cancer patients instead of exacerbate their condition.
According to Science Daily, researchers collected and studied data from a cohort of almost 2,000 patients, medical records of 1,975 patients, clinical and genomic information on 324 kidney cancer patients, a validation set made of data from 4,657 patients, and tissue samples from another 146 people suffering from the disease.
After analyzing the enormous data, researchers and scientists were astounded to learn that high body mass index (BMI) predicted improved overall survival (OS) and even progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC).
"It is an interesting observation that obese patients may do better when they have stage IV disease. This builds on prior work and validates the findings in a new cohort," lead study author Toni K. Choueiri, MD told Medscape Medical News.
The result of the research is considered paradoxical because it is common knowledge that obesity leads to higher chances of developing conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and gout, to name a few.
Despite the overwhelming evidence of the risks of obesity, this vigorous research gives robust and valid data that demonstrates that at least for kidney cancer, obesity predicted higher chances of survival.
To date, there is no clear explanation of this particular phenomenon.
"The biologic rationale may be explained by alterations in the FASN (fatty acid synthase) pathway. We are trying to see if there is any therapeutic opportunity," said Choueiri. "We want to go back to the lab and explore in animal models the implication of FASN on growth of RCC tumors in combination with established standard drugs."
FASN is an enzyme that is encoded by the FASN gene and it is considered an oncogene, or a gene that more than likely predicts cancer. In this groundbreaking research, it seems that FASN is downregulated in overweight or obese patients which could be one of the possible reasons why they have higher survival rate.
No matter the reasons, this research has given doctors and scientists a lead in possible therapeutic interventions that can be done on cancer patients. While it's true that obesity is still discouraged by medical professionals, this study may just be a giant step forward a firm foundation on the countless existing and ongoing research on how to survive cancer.
