According to the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, about 50% of all cancer patients show a syndrome of cachexia, which is characterized by loss of adipose tissue and skeletal muscle mass.
What happens during Cancer Cachexia?
Cancer cachexia is a syndrome of progressive weight loss, anorexia, and persistent erosion of the host’s body cell mass in response to a malignant growth.
The word “cachexia” is derived from the Greek “kakos” meaning “bad” and “hexis” meaning “condition.” It occurs in a number of disease states, including cancer, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), major trauma, surgery, malabsorption, and severe sepsis.
A decline in food intake relative to energy expenditure is the fundamental physiologic derangement leading to cancer cachexia.The loss of adipose tissue is due to an increased lipolysis of the tumor or host products. Loss of skeletal muscle in cachexia results from a depression in protein synthesis combined with an increase in protein degradation. The increase in protein degradation may include both increased activity of the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway and lysosomes.
Insulin therapy or exercise are two methods which appear to preserve host composition by preferential feeding of the host at the expense of the tumor.
More so, future studies that would clearly define the role of signal molecules in producing cancer cachexia syndrome may lead to new treatment strategies, possibly involving modulation of the effects of such molecules on host metabolism.
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