Muscle cramp compound may drive deadly wasting in cancer patients

“The flesh is consumed and becomes water … the abdomen fills with water, the feet and legs swell, the shoulders, clavicles, chest, and thighs melt away. … The illness is fatal.” This spine-chilling description, written by Greek physician and philosopher Hippocrates, is believed to be the first account of a deadly muscle wasting disease called cachexia (pronounced kuh-KEK-sia). Scientists estimate that up to 80% of cancer patients suffer from the condition, where the body relentlessly eats away at itself until organs such as the heart and diaphragm stop working. Even if cachexia doesn’t directly kill a patient, it makes them sicker, weaker, and less able to tolerate chemotherapy and radiation treatments. The cause of cachexia has remained a millennia-old medical mystery, and there are currently no approved therapies to treat it. New research may provide hope. In a study last month in Nature Metabolism , scientists report that lactate—the chemical that causes muscle cramps—may be a major player in the disease . If so, the finding could lead to effective ways to curtail cachexia before it ravages the body. The research is “making quite a splash,” says Marcus Goncalves , an endocrinologist at Weill Cornell Medicine who was not involved in the work. His fellow cachexia researchers have been eagerly sharing the study on social media, he says, “and it seems like they’re really...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news