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Cancer cells wake up when people sleep
- formvoltron 4y agoSo.. pretty much we can't rely on existing mechanisms in our bodies to defeat cancer. Obviously.. we need to find damaged cells, remove them, and replace them with undamaged cells. Likely we need to do this on a continuous basis.
- n4jm4 4y agoNot human bodies, no. But look at other long lived species like elephants, who rarely get cancer and have even more cells than we do. Just splice the right snippet of elephant DNA into ours to kill cancer for good.
- ProjectArcturis 4y agoYour immune system is continuously monitoring the body for cancerous cells. Each of us have probably had A cancerous cell hundreds of times. In order for the cancer to continue to grow, though, it needs a constellation of mutations to impede the immune response, among other things. Essentially, it's a race between a proto-tumor accreting more mutations, and the immune system finding and destroying it.
- clumsysmurf 4y agoIn another summary at medicalXpress, the researchers mention melatonin "Our research shows that the escape of circulating cancer cells from the original tumor is controlled by hormones such as melatonin, which determine our rhythms of day and night" https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-06-breast-cancer-night.html https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-06-breast-cancer-night.h...
- jjallen 4y agoI was just going to mention melatonin related to this. I know that heavy doses of melatonin slow or kill cancer[citation needed]. And you have to think this is somehow related to this research. Although you would expect the opposite of cancer growing at night, when melatonin is ostensibly at its highest (does it peak or start at 8PM?).
- pazimzadeh 4y agoIt would be good to know what the immune system is doing during sleep. As I understand it, metastasis is caused by a local depletion in nutrients or stress to the tumor cells, which then try to find a new environment to occupy. If tumor-killing activity of the immune system happens primarily at night, that could explain why metastasis is also primarily at night, and may explain the discrepancy on melatonin which you just mentioned, where this study found that higher melatonin levels correlated with higher circulating tumor cell numbers, but the literature suggests that melatonin helps kill tumors.
- hun3 4y ago> where this study found that higher melatonin levels correlated with higher circulating tumor cell numbers, but the literature suggests that melatonin helps kill tumors. Looks like a feedback cycle
- weberer 4y ago>I know that heavy doses of melatonin slow or kill cancer Melatonin is an antioxidant, which destroys chemicals known to cause cancer. I can't find info on it destroying cancer cells directly.
- pdimitar 4y agoWell, FINALLY a scientific explanation about "sleep from 22:00 to 6:00, you'll be healthier" thing that is being constantly peddled! It really pisses me off when people just keep repeating stuff and never support them with evidence. This here however -- your tidbit -- is something I can work with and might prompt me to change my habits. Any idea if taking melatonin pills while still going to bed at 4:00 is having the same, or at least some effect? Or does it not work at all then?
- chmod775 4y agoThe problem is that sleep does so much, that even trying to create a list seems impossible, but some try: https://www.healthline.com/health/why-do-we-sleep https://www.healthline.com/health/why-do-we-sleep Sleep has been researched heavily (but far from conclusively), and there is an insane amount of diseases that people who don't get enough sleep are a risk group for. And some of those correlations are quite pronounced, like being ~30% more likely to get dementia if you don't get enough sleep in your 50s and 60s. In some cases nobody can conclusively say whether there's causation, because we don't fully understand diseases like alzheimer or some of the processes happening during sleep, but in the meantime it seems prudent to sleep a healthy amount.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- adamredwoods 4y agohttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8123278 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8123278 >> Melatonin exhibited various mechanisms to restrain metastasis, such as modulation of cell–cell and cell–matrix interaction, extracellular matrix remodeling by matrix metalloproteinases, readjustment of the cytoskeleton, epithelial-mesenchymal transition, and angiogenesis [127]. A recent study reported that the overexpression of the ADAMTS family in renal cell carcinoma was suppressed by melatonin via amplifying of miR-let-7f/miR-181d and reducing protein stability. It is of note that ADAMTS, a disintegrin, and metalloprotease with thrombospondin motifs family, thought to have an impact on cell metastasis and developing of cancer stages. Note: >> Melatonin has short plasma half-life, variable oral absorption, and low variable bioavailability that could be due to extensive first pass metabolism [327], in addition to its poor solubility and stability [328]. Therefore, conventional oral dosage forms (immediate release) are unsuitable candidates for melatonin delivery.
- tus666 4y agoLittle buggers.
- glanzwulf 4y agoJokes on the cancer, I barely get any sleep
- tartoran 4y agoYou’re killing it
- dennis_jeeves1 4y agoWait till you hear that <insert some disease here> is correlated with more waking hours.
- DoreenMichele 4y agoMy general lay-person understanding is that your immune system is less active when you sleep. While I hate the way we tend to overlook other elements of the immune system and act like white blood cells are your entire immune system, in this case it may be very pertinent because white blood cells travel in the blood. They may basically be going out into the blood when there are fewer white blood cells roaming the corridors, looking to kill something.
- Kenneth21 4y ago[dead]
- patchtopic 4y agoobligatory Young Ones reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEITpehWiXk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEITpehWiXk
- mikepurvis 4y agoOr slightly more obscure, Jane Aumonier [1] from Alastair Reynolds' book The Prefect, who ends up with a mysterious scarab device attached to her spine that will kill her if she falls asleep, so she has to be kept medically awake for 11 years. [1]: https://revelationspace.fandom.com/wiki/Jane_Aumonier https://revelationspace.fandom.com/wiki/Jane_Aumonier
- www_harka_com 4y agoThanks for the info. I'm never sleeping again.
- havblue 4y agoWelcome to life on Elm Street.
- hk1337 4y agoYou’re body will betray you.
- dfxm12 4y agoNow read an article about the negative effects of not getting enough sleep.
- themitigating 4y agoRunning is good for your health Running can cause knee issues
- andy_ppp 4y ago“Wake up” is a stretch, we have no idea what is going on here. Would be good to see how people’s circadian rhythms and sleep quality affected this process, maybe the cancer cells are being disposed of by the body during sleep and that process is disregulated. Fascinating research but I think getting to any real understanding from this is a way off.
- otikik 4y agoThat’s unintuitive as hell, but of course Evolution doesn’t feel the need to construct things in a way that makes sense.
- pfisherman 4y agoNot so unintuitive if you have seen enough molecular biology. A lot of cancers are the result of key cogs in the cellular / tissue growth machinery going crazy. A lot of tissue remodeling and growth happens while you sleep. So cancer cells going into turbo mode when you go to sleep doesn’t seem all that crazy.
- otikik 4y agoThank you, I learned something today already
- croniev 4y agoDidn't know this journal does clickbait
- strangus 4y ago"I never sleep, 'cause sleep is the cousin of death." - Nas
- kcartlidge 4y ago> To do this, the team grafted breast cancer tumours into mice Speaking of sleep, if I was doing the above I'm not sure I'd ever sleep well again.
- adamredwoods 4y agoIf we can figure out why this occurs during sleep, maybe we can trick cancer cells into thinking the patients are awake all the time (without actually affecting sleep wellness).