Calorie Restriction Versus Pancreatic Cancer

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EurekAlert! reports that the practice of calorie restriction reduces the risk of pancreatic cancer, in much the same way as it reduces the risk of epithelial cancers: "Prevention of weight gain with a restricted calorie diet sharply reduced the development of pancreatic lesions that lead to cancer [in] a strain of mice that spontaneously develops pancreatic lesions that lead to cancer. ... analysis points to a connection between calorie intake and a protein called Insulin-like Growth Factor (IGF)-1, with obesity increasing and calorie restriction decreasing levels of IGF-1. IGF-1 is an important growth factor known to stimulate the growth of many types of cancer cells. Inflammatory signaling proteins also were found to be reduced in the blood of the calorie-restricted mice. ... The decline in blood levels of inflammatory proteins in the calorie restricted mice makes sense [because] fat tissue is a major source of inflammatory factors such as cytokines."

Link: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-04/uotm-crd041108.php