http://f00.inventorspot.com/ images/Dividing_Cancer_Cell-small.jpg
You’ve heard of lung cancer… Breast cancer… Brain cancer… Pancreatic cancer… and cancers of almost all parts of the body. But have you ever heard of muscle cancer? Probably not. Although it does exist, muscle cancer is exceedingly rare and accounts for less than 1% of new cancers in the United States. Why?
Scientists don’t know for sure, but many suspect that muscle cancer is uncommon for a simple reason: muscle cells can store glucose (sugar). Here’s why this matters:
1. The first mutation that occurs in many cancers is a mutation that causes a cell to take up too much glucose.
2. The more glucose a cell takes up, the more glucose a cell consumes.
3. The more glucose a cell consumes, the more waste the cell produces. And unfortunately, a consequence of this waste is the production of reactive oxygen species, commonly abbreviated as ROS.
4. ROS damage DNA and cause mutation. Eventually, ROS will induce mutations that create uncontrolled cellular proliferation, and cancer will have begun.
However, muscle cells differ from other cell types in a very fundamental aspect. When muscle cells take up extra glucose, they don’t consume it right away. Instead, they store the glucose as glycogen. Consequently, muscle cells have a much lower mutation rate if they are forced to take up extra glucose than other cells have if they consume extra glucose. It is this ability to store glucose as glycogen, instead of burning it and producing mutation inducing ROS, that protects muscle cells from cancer.
Sources:
http://www.canceranswers.com/Muscle.Cancer.html
“Fueling Cancer Cell Growth” Craig Thompson, Ph.D., M.D. Anderson Symposia on Cancer Research 2009