(18-10-06) More Evidence Sugar Feeds Cancer

Growing tumor cells can crowd out other cells and
cut them off from oxygen-carrying blood vessels,
necessary for their survival. When this happens,
some cancer cells have developed the ability to
bypass the need for oxygen and instead switch to
the glycolytic pathway, which they use even when
oxygen is restored.

Researchers from the Harvard Medical School have
now found that blocking one of the glycolytic
pathway's enzymes, LDHA, may be an effective
anti-cancer therapy. The researchers shut down
glycoloysis in breast cancer cells by blocking LDHA
and implanted the cells in mice. Among the LDHA-
deficient mice, only two died, one at 16 weeks and
the other at 18 weeks, and 80 percent were still
living at the end of the four-month study.

In contrast, the control mice, which had tumor cells
with a working glycolytic pathway, died at 10 weeks
or before. The researchers concluded that LDHA
may be a weak point in the glycolytic pathway, and
knocking out the pathway could be an effective way
to fight cancer.

Cancer Cell June 2006, Vol. 9, No. 6: 425-434 (Free
Full-Text Study)
Souce: Science Daily

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