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I thought this would be about allometric scaling of organs. But if we're on the topic of metabolism, I wonder what the rate of cancer is for shrews vs. elephant
by ak217 9y ago
I thought this would be about allometric scaling of organs. But if we're on the topic of metabolism, I wonder what the rate of cancer is for shrews vs. elephants, once the metabolism and lifespan are somehow accounted for.
- tbirrell 9y agoWhat does metabolism have to do with cancer?
- 24gttghh 9y agoQuite possibly, a lot: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/magazine/warburg-effect-an-old-idea-revived-starve-cancer-to-death.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/magazine/warburg-effect-a... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warburg_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warburg_effect
- Retric 9y agoCancer is vastly more common among specific tissue types. So, it's hard to do a direct comparison.
- evolve2017 9y agoThis is actually a great question - take a look at this discussion from 2015. This isn't my area of expertise, but my understanding is that elephants have many more copies of TP53, a gene that plays a critical role in regulating the cell cycle (and thus uncontrolled growth that may occur in cancer). One of the linked papers also states that there was no correlation between body size and cancer in their experiments. https://www.nature.com/news/how-elephants-avoid-cancer-1.18534 https://www.nature.com/news/how-elephants-avoid-cancer-1.185...