Obesity increases the risk of many cancers and impairs the anti-tumour immune response. However, little is known about whether the source or composition of dietary fat affects tumour growth or anti-tumour immunity in obesity. Here, we show that high-fat diets (HFDs) derived from lard, beef tallow or butter accelerate tumour growth in a syngeneic model of melanoma, but HFDs based on coconut oil, palm oil or olive oil do not, despite equivalent obesity. Using butter-based and palm oil-based HFDs as examples, we find that these dietary fat sources differentially regulate natural killer and CD8 T cell infiltration and function within the tumour microenvironment, governed by distinct effects on the plasma metabolome and intracellular metabolism. We identify diet-related lipid intermediates, namely long-chain acylcarnitine species, as immunosuppressive metabolites enriched in mice fed butter compared to palm oil HFD. Together, these results highlight the significance of diet in maintaining a healthy immune system and suggest that modifying dietary fat may improve cancer outcomes in obesity. This study shows that animal-based high-fat diets accelerate tumour growth and impair anti-tumour response to melanoma in obese mice, whereas plant-based high-fat diets do not.
Here, we show that high-fat diets (HFDs) derived from lard, beef tallow or butter accelerate tumour growth in a syngeneic model of melanoma, but HFDs based on coconut oil, palm oil or olive oil do not, despite equivalent obesity.
Great points. I was wondering why you didn’t go into biomagnification. That would contribute to explaining more cancers in higher consumer levels. This feels like it’s on its way to useful theory.
Oh, absolutely. Biomagnification is inherent to the logic of raising through the trophic levels. So even if we forego the zoo experiment as a setting, in theory any time there’s a toxin or a man-made hazardous chemical due to pollution in the wild, we are bound to find higher levels of either due to the concentration effect alone.
We can even point that back to the study, as the zoo animals were eating domestic raised animals by humans and the inherent hazards of that practice surely increase the risk of cancer, not lower it. Maybe they can even start a lab grown meat trial with carnivorous zoo animals and see if the cancer rate actually lowers from that alone. In theory, it should.
Great points. I was wondering why you didn’t go into biomagnification. That would contribute to explaining more cancers in higher consumer levels. This feels like it’s on its way to useful theory.
Oh, absolutely. Biomagnification is inherent to the logic of raising through the trophic levels. So even if we forego the zoo experiment as a setting, in theory any time there’s a toxin or a man-made hazardous chemical due to pollution in the wild, we are bound to find higher levels of either due to the concentration effect alone.
We can even point that back to the study, as the zoo animals were eating domestic raised animals by humans and the inherent hazards of that practice surely increase the risk of cancer, not lower it. Maybe they can even start a lab grown meat trial with carnivorous zoo animals and see if the cancer rate actually lowers from that alone. In theory, it should.