Harvard study: 1 sugary drink a day may increase liver cancer risk by 73%

Harvard University: "Fatty Happy Water" may increase the risk of liver cancer by 78%

Recently, scientists from the University of South Carolina, Harvard University, and other research institutions shared their latest findings at the 2022 annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition, based on nearly 19 years of tracking data on more than 90,000 women aged 50-79, researchers found that people who drank at least one sugary drink a day had a 73% increased risk of liver cancer compared to those who drank less than three sugary drinks a month. The risk of liver cancer increased by 73 percent if people drank more than one sugary drink a day and by 78 percent if they drank more than one sugary drink a day.

Analyzing the connection, the researchers explained that consuming too much sugar reduces insulin sensitivity and also leads to weight gain and increased fat storage in the liver, which are strong factors that increase the risk of liver cancer.

But the more specific and clear effects of which need more studies to confirm, including data on men and young women.

II. Nature Sub-Journal: Sun exposure promotes the secretion of hunger hormones in men, which stimulates eating and weight gain, while women are not affected

On July 11, 2022, a team led by Carmit Levy from the Department of Human Genetics and Biochemistry at Tel Aviv University's Sackler School of Medicine in Israel published a research paper in Nature Metabolism titled Food-seeking behavior is triggered by skin ultraviolet Food-seeking behavior is triggered by skin ultraviolet exposure in males.

The paper indicates that ultraviolet (UV) radiation affects males and females differently, and that sunlight exposure stimulates food-seeking behavior in males by a mechanism that relies on the secretion of ghrelin (a hormone that stimulates food intake) in skin fat cells.

The team further revealed the mechanism behind this phenomenon: UVB exposure from sunlight upregulates the expression of p53, a transcription factor that regulates multiple target genes to suppress tumor growth, in the skin, while p53 also activates the promoter of hunger hormone (ghrelin), promoting its expression and release.

However, in women, this mechanism is interrupted in the presence of estrogen, thus explaining why the two sexes exhibit different appetite changes in response to solar exposure.

III. Research on the mechanism of malignancy and recurrence of ventricular meningioma has been progressed

Recently, the research groups of academician Wang Hongyang and researcher Chen Lei from the National Liver Cancer Science Center of Naval Medical University, together with researcher Wang Peng's group and researcher Gao Dong's group from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, published a research paper in the the the the the Advanced Science journal - Hepatobiliary Tumor Organoids Reveal HLA Class I Neoantigen Landscape and Antitumoral Activity of Neoantigen Peptide Enhanced with Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors ("Hepatobiliary Tumor Class"). Organoids Reveal HLA Class I Neoantigen Landscape and Antitumoral Activity of Neoantigen Peptide Enhanced with Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors").

This study demonstrates a new model that is effective in screening neoantigen peptides as targets for personalized immunotherapy. The study predicted and analyzed a library of neoantigen peptides for hepatobiliary tumors by multi-omics approaches including whole genome sequencing (WGS), RNA sequencing (RNA-seq), mass spectrometry (MS), and single-cell RNA sequencing (SC RNA-seq); established an in vitro organ-like neoantigen peptide activity screening platform and performed individualized anti-tumor effect assessment. The platform was initially confirmed to have great potential for individualized immunotherapy efficacy assessment.

IV. Nanjing Medical University team released neoadjuvant clinical research results for liver cancer

To further investigate the efficacy and safety of certolizumab in combination with lapatinib in resectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), a research team led by Yongxiang Xia, Xuehao Wang, Ping Wang, and Liyong Pu from the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University conducted an open-label, single-arm, phase II clinical study.

They found that certolizumab in combination with lapatinib demonstrated promising efficacy and a manageable safety profile in the neoadjuvant treatment of resectable HCC. The study also identified dendritic cell infiltration as a biomarker for predicting the efficacy of neoadjuvant therapy with certolizumab in combination with lapatinib and patient relapse and circulating tumor DNA as a biomarker for predicting pathological remission and relapse. In some patients with multifocal HCC, there are differences in the sensitivity of different lesions to treatment. Abnormal glucose metabolism correlates with the sensitivity of different lesions to treatment.

The investigators concluded that low-dose neoadjuvant therapy in combination with postoperative adjuvant therapy was effective in inhibiting hepatocellular carcinoma recurrence and that the combination of postoperative adjuvant therapy was necessary to improve this low pathological response in patients with low-intensityneoadjuvant therapy with a low lesion pathological response rate. This research was published in the prestigious journal Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer.