Omega-3 fatty acids may enhance cancer-fighting power of immunotherapy

Editor’s Pick: A new study in mice finds that omega-3 fatty acids may help immunotherapy and other therapies better fight cancer.

Supplemental Omega-3 It can improve the immunotherapy effect of subcutaneous MB49 bladder cancer tumor in mice.

A new study in mice suggests that omega-3 fatty acids may help immunotherapy and other treatments to better fight cancer. Immunotherapy, which stimulates the body’s own immune system to attack cancer, has revolutionized cancer treatment, but it doesn’t work for every patient.

Abigail Kelly, a research associate at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center at Harvard Medical School in Boston, said: “Dietary interventions can be powerful tools because they are relatively simple to implement and inexpensive to implement. high.” “Our findings suggest that omega-3 supplementation has the potential to broadly improve immunotherapy and other anticancer drugs in clinical settings.”

Kelly will present in April The new study was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Investigative Pathology during the American Society for Experimental Biology (EB) 2022 meeting in Philadelphia, 2-5.

Research from various laboratories shows that omega-3 fatty acids can help reduce cancer risk, while eating too much omega-6 fatty acids can cause cancer. Sources of omega-3 fatty acids include fish, nuts, and seeds, while omega-6 fatty acids are found in meat, eggs, and other foods.

In the new study, Kelly and senior author Dipak Panigraphy sought to find out how diets supplemented with these fatty acids affected the antitumor activity of immune checkpoint blockade immunotherapy, as well as inhibiting Anti-inflammatory therapy with enzymatic epoxide hydrolase (sEH). Immunotherapies have received regulatory approval and are currently in clinical use, while anti-inflammatory therapies are in clinical development.

Omega-3 supplementation combined with sEH inhibition Improved immunotherapeutic efficacy in subcutaneous Lewis lung cancer tumors in mice.

The researchers used state-of-the-art mouse models of primary and metastatic tumors in the new study. For 10 days before injecting the tumors and throughout the study, they fed the mice a standard chow, a diet high in -3 or 6. One week after tumor injection, mice in each diet group began to receive immunotherapy, anti-inflammatory treatment, both treatments, or no treatment.

Researchers found that dietary supplementation of omega-3 fatty acids prevented tumor growth in mice treated with immunotherapy, sEH inhibitors, or both. In contrast, mice fed high omega-6 fatty acids had faster tumor growth in certain tumor types after immunotherapy.

In mice that received a high-3 diet and two cancer treatments, up to 67% of tumor growth was affected compared to mice that received no treatment and a normal diet. inhibition. This suggests possible synergistic antitumor activity, meaning that the combined effect may be greater than the sum of the parts.

Kelly said, “We show for the first time that a combination of immunotherapy and anti-inflammatory therapy (sEHi) is more effective when fed mice rich in omega-3 fatty acids.” This is very promising because dietary supplements are easy to implement for cancer patients and can be added to patients already on immunotherapy.”

The researchers are currently Additional research is underway to determine the mechanism of action that may result in synergistic antitumor activity through omega-3 supplementation. They are conducting these studies with human cancer tissues and cells, human immune cells and animal models to help translate into cancer patients. These new results from Kelly and colleagues may represent a new therapeutic approach that still needs to be evaluated in humans.

Source: medical Xpress

Disclaimer: Kangjia is committed to the dissemination of health knowledge, the content is edited based on public information, and the copyright belongs to the original author; if there is any infringement, please leave a message online to delete it. This article aims to introduce the progress of health science and cannot be used as a treatment plan; if you need precise health guidance, please go to a regular hospital for diagnosis and treatment.