Why muscle loss, a side effect of cancer, can often be fatal and how it can treated

Nearly one-third of cancer patients die from a side-effect you’ve likely never heard of: cancer cachexia.

With cachexia, a patient loses a significant amount of weight due to their disease, with considerable losses of muscle mass. Muscle plays essential roles in movement, exercise and metabolism. Simple things like walking up the stairs, doing laundry and taking a breath are only possible because of muscles.

Despite the significance of cachexia for cancer patients, there has been very little progress in treating the condition.

What is cancer cachexia

Cancer cachexia is an unintentional loss of body weight that mainly affects muscle. It is diagnosed when a cancer patient loses more than five per cent of their body weight over six months. For a 180-pound (82-kilogram) person, this would equate to nine pounds, or four kilograms, lost.

Skeletal muscle is a remarkable organ that can repair and rebuild itself regularly. Muscle experiences periods of breakdown and rebuilding every day. When we exercise, we induce muscle damage, that is then repaired, to make even stronger muscles. In a healthy person, this keeps muscle mass balanced and relatively unchanged day-to-day. However, in a condition like cachexia, this system is no longer balanced.

During cachexia, we see increases in the pathways responsible for muscle breakdown and decreases in...

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