If you’re diagnosed with breast cancer, what should you eat to ensure the best prognosis?

In APL Bioengineering, by AIP Publishing, a multidisciplinary team of researchers at Princeton University conducted a study to find out.

“We took the approach of building identical engineered tumours and culturing them in conditions that mimic the blood composition of patients under different dietary states,” author Celeste M. Nelson said.

“We were hoping to identify dietary conditions that would slow tumour growth. Instead, we found one dietary condition — a high-fat diet — that sped up tumour growth.”

The researchers engineered a tumour model using a human plasmalike medium to re-create a more realistic microenvironment around tumours.

This allowed them to replicate the biochemical effects of nutrients from food.

As a result, they could isolate specific nutrients and their effects and closely examine the metabolic reprogramming that occurs in cancer cells.

Their study focused on triple-negative breast cancer, a subtype that is particularly difficult to treat with standard methods.

They carefully examined the structure, growth, and spread of cancer cells and how these characteristics differ in four different dietary conditions that can occur in a human body: high-insulin, high-glucose, high-ketone, and high-fat.

They discovered a high-fat diet accelerates tumour growth and invasion.

They also found it causes an increase in the enzyme MMP1, which degrades the extracellular matrix, and is associated with a poor prognosis.

Using their results, the researchers will be able to apply their method to other breast cancer subtypes and scenarios.

Previous studies to examine the connection between diet and tumour growth fall short by failing to account for the complexity of interconnected systems in the body.

The interplay between the immune system, human tissues involved in metabolism, and the microbiome of trillions of microorganisms in the body affects how cancer cells behave.

In addition, cells in the body are bathed in a water-based fluid, called interstitial fluid, that flows continuously around cells.

Earlier studies examining how nutrients from food affect tumours have struggled to replicate the constant flow of nutrients around cells.

“Cells are typically cultured in media that is saturated with sugars and other biochemicals at levels that don’t match what you see in the human body,” Nelson said.

“Our study shows that tumour cells behave differently when cultured in media that matches the biochemical composition of human plasma.”

The researchers plan to use their results to further examine the complex interplay between dietary conditions and various tumour therapies.

“We plan to take the same system and define whether tumours respond differently to chemotherapy when cultured in media mimicking the different dietary conditions,” Nelson said.

“This would allow physicians to potentially make recommendations about what a patient should eat if prescribed a specific therapy.”

Source: American Institute of Physics