📷 Mouse echocardiograms and other tests give Parry and student Louisa Tichy insight on cachexia. Mice that exercised on the lab’s treadmill, they say, saw slower tumor growth and reduced levels of cachexia.
These findings conflict with prior research suggesting that the size of a tumor is not necessarily related to the level of cachexia. “So far in our studies, those things go hand in hand,” Parry says. “That is really powerful.”
Parry says often patients will progress to a later stage of cachexia before they’re diagnosed, and there is no standard treatment.
“It’s almost the kiss of death,” she says. “Once a cancer patient is diagnosed with cachexia, they stop responding to traditional types of treatments, like chemotherapy and immunotherapy.”
Cachexia accelerates the breakdown of skeletal and heart muscle, leading to lower survival rates, which is why Parry’s studies are focused on the ability of exercise to protect the musculature.
Exercise-training the mice prior to implantation of tumor cells correlated with significantly slower tumor growth. Exercising once the tumor cells were implanted showed similar, though less robust results. Allowing the tumor to grow before beginning an exercise regimen for the mice provided the smallest benefits.
“The major point is that exercise initiated at any time point in the cancer continuum offered some protection,” Parry says.
“This is huge for the field of exercise physiology.” It hammers home the idea that physical activity can have a serious impact on slowing disease progression.
Tichy knew from prior research with her mentor that – at least in mice – high-intensity exercise can increase survival rates and longevity in tumor-bearing mice with cachexia. But that level of exercise is not always feasible for the human patients she and Parry hope to help.
They wondered, could other exercise modalities provide similar outcomes?
As the only graduate student in her lab, Parry says, Tichy did most of the heavy lifting on the study, spending hours alone, coaching her team of mice to run on the small treadmill.
After a period of time, Tichy would measure the tumors with a caliper and record the size. She was often amazed by the results.
“It’s the tumor measurements that surprise me every time,” Tichy says. “We always see a consistent pattern, no matter what exercise modality.”
Tichy’s earlier research with Parry has already garnered her a publication in Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology and a first place poster award at the American College of Sports Medicine Southeast Chapter meeting. In September, she will present her work in the American Society for Investigative Pathology’s Young Investigator Keynote Seminar Series.
For her dissertation, she is exploring how low-intensity exercise might affect the efficacy of immunotherapies on cancer.
“Cancer is one of the leading causes of death, and we still don’t know how to manage it,” she says.
“Finding a better way to treat cancer, and to make the patient feel better, is important to me.”
📷 Tichy’s earlier research with Parry has already garnered her a publication in Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology.
