Chemotherapy inhibited tumor growth but promoted cachexia, this was attenuated by a combination of fish oil and selenium in this animal study. - GreenMedInfo Summary
Skeletal muscle atrophy is attenuated in tumor-bearing mice under chemotherapy by treatment with fish oil and selenium.
Oncotarget. 2015 Apr 10 ;6(10):7758-73. PMID: 25797259
Hang Wang
Chemotherapy can cause cachexia, which is manifested by weight loss, inflammation and muscle atrophy. However, the mechanisms of tumor and chemotherapy on skeletal muscle proteolysis, remained unclear. In this report, we demonstrated that tumor-induced myostatin in turn induced TNF-α, thus activating calcium-dependent and proteasomal protein degradation. Chemotherapy activated myostatin-mediated proteolysis and muscle atrophy by elevating IL-6. In tumor-bearing mice under chemotherapy, supplementation with fish oil and selenium prevented a rise in IL-6, TNF-α and myostatin and muscle atrophy. The findings presented here allow us to better understand the molecular basis of cancer cachexia and potentiate nutrition supplementation in future cancer chemotherapy.