The Risk of Cancer Fades as We Get Older, And We May Finally Know Why : ScienceAlert

Aging brings about two opposite trends cancer Risks: First, Risks rising In our 60s and 70s, decades of genetic mutations accumulate in our bodies. But after age 80 or so, the risk drops again — and a new study may explain a key reason why.

The international team of scientists behind Research Analyzing mouse lung cancer and tracking alveolar type 2 (AT2) behavior stem cells. These cells are essential for lung regeneration and are the source of many cells. lung cancer Let’s get started.

It was found that older mice had higher levels of a protein called NUPR1. This causes cells to behave as if they are deficient in iron, which limits their rate of regeneration—limiting both healthy growth and cancerous tumors.

“Senescent cells actually have more iron, but for reasons we don’t fully understand yet, they function as if they don’t have enough iron,” explain Zhuang Xueqian, a cancer biologist from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) in New York.

“Senescent cells lose their ability to renew and therefore the uncontrolled growth that occurs in cancer.”

The same process was found to occur in human cells: more NUPR1 causes a decrease in the amount of iron available to the cells. When NUPR1 was artificially reduced or iron was artificially increased, cell growth was enhanced again.

This may provide researchers with a way to explore treatments that target iron metabolism, especially in older adults. It may restore lung capacity in those experiencing long-term effects From COVID-19For example.

The findings also have implications for cancer treatments based on a type of cell death called cell death. iron deathtriggered by iron. The researchers found that this type of cell death was less common in older cells because of their functional iron deficiency.

This may also make them more resistant to ferroptosis-based cancer treatments being developed – so the sooner ferroptosis treatments are tried, the better the results.

“Our data suggest that events that occur when we are young may be much more dangerous than events that occur later in life in terms of cancer prevention,” explain Cancer biologist Tuomas Tammela from MSK.

“Therefore, preventing young people from smoking, tanning, or being exposed to other apparent carcinogens may be more important than we think.”

About the impact of NUPR1 and its relationship with stem cells function—healthy regeneration and cancerous growth—but these are important findings in the fight against cancer at any stage of life.

As with cancer treatment, there are multiple factors to consider: the type and stage of the cancer, other medical conditions that may be involved, and (as this new study shows) the age of the individual. more personalized we can do these treatmentsthe more effective they are.

“There is still much unknown about how aging actually changes the biology of cancer,” explain strong.

The study was published in nature.