The relationship between nutrition and the risk of developing tumors was investigated in the animal world with the help of colleagues from the University of Debrecen. Experiments on hydra and zebrafish have shown that dietary restriction prevented or slowed the development of cancer.
Jácint Tökölyi, Associate Professor of the Department of Evolutionary Zoology and Human Biology at the Faculty of Science and Technology of the University of Debrecen, said: the research is part of a long-term collaboration, and this is one of its stages.
At the University of Montpellier, there is a research group led by Professor Frédéric Thomas, which examines the formation of tumors from an evolutionary and ecological approach. Our joint research concerns a relationship that we know relatively well for mammals, and now we have generalized it to the animal world as a whole. We found that there is a correlation between calorie consumption, i.e. the amount of food consumed, and the risk of developing cancer. Examining freshwater hydras and zebrafish, we found that the higher the consumption, the higher the chance of developing cancer. In addition to cancer, this also applies to diseases associated with aging
– reported Jácint Tökölyi.
The university associate professor emphasized that based on existing research, it is not so easy to show the connection in humans, there are a few decades of experiments, but in the case of primates, the relationship between nutrition and the risk of developing tumors can be supported.
It is safe to say that reduced food consumption has significant health benefits, as our experiments have proven. We are only scratching the surface, of what is also going on in the background, we continue the work and we trust it, we can also help to decipher why and how tumors develop
– detailed the specialist.
The research was carried out in an international co-production for about five years, the specialists of the University of Debrecen cooperated with French, Canadian and Australian scientists. Their results were recently published in the journal of Scientific Reports, and the French research network, CNRS, also published news about the joint work.
(unideb.hu)
