A new study conducted by the David Gefen School of Medicine at University of California in Los Angeles has found a link between a high-calorie, high-fat diet may lead to pancreatic cancer. The researchers discovered this link through an experiment in which they caused mice to become obese by feeding them diets high in calories and fat. When compared to the control group of mice (those fed a normal mouse diet), over a 14-month period, the obese mice gained twice as much weight (15.9 grams compared to 7.2 grams). Those mice went on to develop several major health issues such as pancreatic inflammation, metabolic abnormalities, high insulin levels, and pancreatic lesions associated with pancreatic cancer.
According to researcher Dr. Guido Eibl, the development of the disease is similar to that in humans. Luckily these lesions are slow to develop into cancer, giving doctors enough time to intervene with cancer preventative strategies, such as switching to a lower-fat and lower-calorie diet, which usually has a positive effect on the prognosis. Eibl and his team believe that their results demonstrate that a diet high in calories and fat not only leads to obesity but also accelerates the rate at which pancreatic lesions develop in humans, and that these findings may help continue to unravel the cancer promoting mechanisms of obesity.
Pancreatic cancer has a deadly reputation, with a five-year survival rate after diagnosis of only 6%. That is partially due the usually late diagnosis of pancreatic cancer as its symptoms are not always caught until later stages or the disease has spread to other parts of the body, and partially due to the pancreas’ position in the very centre of the body making it difficult to access.
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