High-fat diet ‘linked to cancer metastasis’

High-fat diets may play a role in causing cancer to metastasise, the process by which the disease migrates from one part of the body to another.

A potentially groundbreaking new study from the Institute for Research in Barcelona has identified a specific protein called CD36 in the membranes of cancer cells that have the ability to metastasise.

This protein is responsible for taking up fatty acids and has been shown by this research to act as a general marker of metastatic cells, as well as being the first to be generally specific to metastasis.

CD36 was present on metastatic cancer cells from patients with a range of different tumours and, when added to non-metastatic cancer cells, was shown to cause the cancer to spread.

Moreover, in a study of mice with cancer cells that had already metastasised, CD36-blocking antibodies led to the complete removal of metastases in 20 percent of cases, as well as a reduction of 80 to 90 percent of metastases in other mice.

Professor Salvador Aznar Benitah at the Institute for Research in Barcelona said: "We expect this study to have a big impact on the scientific community and to further advances in metastasis research, and we hope to be able to validate the potential of CD36 as an anti-metastasis treatment."

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