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Am I reading this wrong, or has something else been accidentally discovered: Being cold/stressed out causes tumors?

by ry0ohki 13y ago

craigyk 13y ago
depends. a lot of these mice are specific breeds designed to make it at least feasible to perform experimentation. It's common to use mouse lines that have extremely deficient immune systems. Otherwise there would be almost zero chance of tumor cells transferred from a different species (i.e. human) being able to grow on the mouse for study.
- jonlucc 13y ago
  This is a very good point. It is important for non-researchers to know that when you want to do a mouse (or rat, dog, or non-human primate) study, you have to decide what particular strain of mouse to buy. There are MANY options from Harlan, Charles River, etc, and each strain has its own genetic composition. Some of the strains are intentionally inbred, or intentionally outbred. I think this variation might also be more important than some people are giving credit for. It is entirely possible to run a mouse study twice, confirming the results. Then, you can run the same protocol in a different strain and get no results or different results. Then, you have to try to understand which strain might be more applicable in a human population.
knowtheory 13y ago
I'd be super uncomfortable with anybody asserting that conclusion. What the quote in the original article says is that they have data that in a preliminary fashion supports the hypothesis that being cold (and trying to keep warm) suppresses a mouse's ability to fight off tumor growth. That is very different from saying cold/stress causes tumors.
- DougWebb 13y ago
  "causes" is the troubling word there. From what I've read, in most people and animals tumors are growing all of the time due to cell replication defects, but normally the immune system gets rid of them. Cancer, as a disease, isn't "your body is making tumors", it's "your immune system isn't keeping up with your tumors". From that point of view, anything which makes your immune system less effective "causes" cancer by making it harder for your immune system to kill tumor cells faster than they occur. Being cold all of the time, or being subjected to any type of chronic stress, certainly seems like it could do that.

Am I reading this wrong, or has something else been accidentally discovered: Being cold/stressed out causes tumors?

by ry0ohki 13y ago

Am I reading this wrong, or has something else been accidentally discovered: Being cold/stressed out causes tumors?

depends. a lot of these mice are specific breeds designed to make it at least feasible to perform experimentation. It's common to use mouse lines that have extremely deficient immune systems. Otherwise there would be almost zero chance of tumor cells transferred from a different species (i.e. human) being able to grow on the mouse for study.

jonlucc 13y ago
This is a very good point. It is important for non-researchers to know that when you want to do a mouse (or rat, dog, or non-human primate) study, you have to decide what particular strain of mouse to buy. There are MANY options from Harlan, Charles River, etc, and each strain has its own genetic composition. Some of the strains are intentionally inbred, or intentionally outbred. I think this variation might also be more important than some people are giving credit for. It is entirely possible to run a mouse study twice, confirming the results. Then, you can run the same protocol in a different strain and get no results or different results. Then, you have to try to understand which strain might be more applicable in a human population.

knowtheory 13y ago

I'd be super uncomfortable with anybody asserting that conclusion. What the quote in the original article says is that they have data that in a preliminary fashion supports the hypothesis that being cold (and trying to keep warm) suppresses a mouse's ability to fight off tumor growth. That is very different from saying cold/stress causes tumors.

DougWebb 13y ago
"causes" is the troubling word there. From what I've read, in most people and animals tumors are growing all of the time due to cell replication defects, but normally the immune system gets rid of them. Cancer, as a disease, isn't "your body is making tumors", it's "your immune system isn't keeping up with your tumors". From that point of view, anything which makes your immune system less effective "causes" cancer by making it harder for your immune system to kill tumor cells faster than they occur. Being cold all of the time, or being subjected to any type of chronic stress, certainly seems like it could do that.