Losing weight lowered levels of proteins associated with tumor growth

Two study leaders -- Dr. Catherine Duggan, principal staff scientist in the Public Health Sciences Division, and Dr. Anne McTiernan, cancer prevention researcher in the Public Health Sciences Division and the article's senior author -- are available to provide details on the study and its implications.

The study:

• Measured three proteins that are known to enhance tumor-related angiogenesis -- the formation of blood vessels that feed tumors and enable them to grow.
• Was intended to see how cancer-promoting proteins changed when overweight, sedentary, postmenopausal women lost weight through diet or diet and exercise over the course of a year.
• Enrolled 439 healthy women (they did not have cancer), placing each participant in one of four study arms:
  • Calorie- and fat-restricted diet.
  • Aerobic exercise five days a week.
  • Combined diet and exercise.
  • Control (no intervention).
• Found that women in the diet arm and the diet and exercise arm lost more weight and had significantly lower levels of angiogenesis-related proteins, compared with women in the exercise-only arm and the control arm.

The authors said that it is known that being overweight and having a sedentary lifestyle are associated with increased risk for developing certain cancers, but the reasons for this relationship are not clear.

This study shows that weight loss may be a safe and effective way to improve the "angiogenic profile" of healthy individuals, meaning they would have lower blood levels of cancer-promoting proteins. Although the researchers cannot say for certain that this would impact the growth of tumors, they believe there could be an association between reduced protein levels and a less favorable environment for tumor growth.

Story Source:

The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. The original item was written by Bill Briggs. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Journal Reference:

1. Catherine Duggan, Jean de Dieu Tapsoba, Ching-Yun Wang, Anne McTiernan. Dietary Weight Loss and Exercise Effects on Serum Biomarkers of Angiogenesis in Overweight Postmenopausal Women: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Cancer Research, July 2016 DOI: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-16-0399