Tumors can destroy the blood vessels of muscles even when the muscles are nowhere close to the tumor. That is the key finding of a new study that my colleagues and I recently published in the journal Nature Cancer.
Muscle loss in cancer patients is a major health problem, but the exact causes of how precisely tumors affect muscles remain an active area of research.
Scientists in my lab were curious whether one explanation for the muscle loss in cancer patients could be that the cancer impairs the blood vessels that are necessary to supply nutrients and oxygen to muscles. Healthy blood vessels ensure that blood containing oxygen and nutrients is transported from the heart to all tissues and organs in the body, and then circulates back to the heart. Unhealthy blood vessels lose the ability to circulate sufficient blood and develop leaks, with nutrients seeping into the tissue prematurely and thereby cutting off the supply of nutrients to tissues that are further downstream.