Tag Archives: metabolism

Science No Chaser

Cachexia: How Cancer Sabotages Patients’ Metabolism

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[A cancer patient rests in a hospital bed. Photo by Christine Gleason via Creative Commons 2.0 & Flickr] 

Tumors are master manipulators. They have to be in order to escape human immune systems. Scientists have found evidence that tumors hide by wearing biochemical disguises and some tumors can even recruit turncoat immune cells to their cause.

And now scientists have found evidence that some tumors alter the whole body’s metabolism by “reprogramming” the liver,  according to a study in the journal Cell Metabolism. [Full disclosure: I have an accepted an internship position at Cell Press’s media relations office, but I don’t start until January. I conducted the interviews this post is based on prior to accepting the internship.] The consequences of that reprogramming are often deadly. 

It’s no secret that many cancer patients waste away. They lose weight, including lean muscle mass.  Many lose their appetites, too. Food doesn’t seem to nourish them anymore. They grow weaker.  Breathing gets harder.  And, too often, they die.

This wasting syndrome is called cachexia.  

“The wasting can get so severe in so many patients that it’s estimated to account for 30% of all deaths due to cancer,” explains study co-author Thomas Flint of University of Cambridge. “Lots of people are saying [the cause of death] is the metastasis; it’s this and that, but about 30% of the deaths don’t seem to be directly explained by the tumor.”  Continue reading “Cachexia: How Cancer Sabotages Patients’ Metabolism” »

Science No Chaser, Under the Radar

7 Things To Know About Mitochondria: 2016 edition

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Mitochondria: To most people, they’re little more than a ghostly memory fragment from middle school biology. However, these tiny “powerhouse(s) of the cell” are much more than they seem.

They’re actually the shape-shifting descendants of ancient bacteria that were eaten by a larger archaebacterium billions of years ago. . (If you want to know more about that theory, check out my recent Lateral magazine piece on the scientist who developed that theory.)  Mitochondria have complex relationships with other organelles, swim around in our neurons, and make up 1/3rd of the mass of heart cells.  In the past year, scientists have learned how to add and remove them with cellular surgeries and how to manipulate them directly.

Mitochondria live in every cell in your body and are essential for human life. As University of California post doc Samantha Lewis pointed out to me: “There’s mitochondrial involvement in almost every disease.” 

Yet, we rarely hear of or think about our cells’ powerhouses.

Here are seven facts you probably haven’t heard about mitochondria:

1:  Mitochondria are interconnected shape-shifters.

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[A bone cancer cell with stringy mitochondria highlighted in yellow. Photo by NICHD via Flickr & CC 2.0 License.] 

We say “Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell” as if mitochondria is a singular word, but actually it’s plural. (The singular of mitochondria is mitochondrion.)  However, in most cells mitochondria act as a collective, passing electrons and genetic information from mitochondrion to mitochondrion.

“They’re [descended from] bacteria that divide in a binary fashion,” explained UC Davis cell biologist and mitochondria specialist Jodi Nunnari. “During the course of evolution [the mitochondrial] genome has been greatly reduced. As a consequence of that and the fact that they were reproducing in a new environment, a few of those do mitochondrial fusion.” Mitochondria’s habit of merging sets them apart from all known bacteria. “Bacteria divide, but they don’t fuse,” Nunnari added.

In fact, mitochondria are so tightly connected that many scientists think of them as a membrane network rather than a series of jelly-bean shaped organelles.

Continue reading “7 Things To Know About Mitochondria: 2016 edition” »

Science No Chaser, Underrated Organs

Inside the Pancreas: How Beta Cells Change as We Age

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[A diabetic supply kit, complete with a knitted pouch that’s shaped like a pancreas. Photo by Erin Stevenson O’Connor via Flickr and Creative Commons.] 

The box arrived around 5:00 pm. Many of Efsun Arda’s colleagues were already heading home for Thanksgiving, but Arda had work to do. As a post-doc in Seung Kim’s lab at Stanford, Arda studies one of the body’s most unknowable vital organs– the pancreas.

Although the pancreas plays a crucial role in diabetes–which impacts almost 1 in 10 Americans, according to the CDC–and although pancreatic cancer is extremely lethal, the pancreas remains largely a mystery, Kim and Arda say.

(A quick Google Scholar search turned up 20,500 papers mentioning the pancreas in 2016 so far, but that’s a stark contrast to the 124,000 papers for “liver” and 113,000 for “kidney”.) 

Much of what doctors do know about the pancreas comes from inference based on physiological and blood chemistry studies.

Collecting pancreas samples from living people is extremely risky and highly impractical. The pancreas itself is a large gland, full of active enzymes, nestled in a tough-to-reach spot behind the stomach. The enzymes inside the pancreas itself are “like a pack of wolves” Kim says; the slightest damage will cause the organ to start digesting itself, which would likely kill the patient.

Consequently, most studies that peek under the pancreas’ hood rely on cadavers.  Continue reading “Inside the Pancreas: How Beta Cells Change as We Age” »