WSU Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine researchers believe sleep may be the unsung hero of cancer prevention and treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While we\u2019ve all heard common pieces of advice<\/a> to reduce our risk of developing cancer\u2014wear sunscreen, avoid tobacco, and eat a balanced diet \u2013 the role of sleep is rarely discussed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the Sleep and Performance Research Center<\/a>, researchers aim to better understand the role of sleep deprivation and circadian rhythm disruption in cancer, work they hope will translate into healthier populations and better outcomes for cancer patients. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A growing body of research shows that different aspects of sleep, including timing and quality, can affect cancer risk as well as response to treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Supported by the Henning Cancer gift<\/a> to the college, circadian biologist Yool Lee, PhD, and his team study the role of circadian rhythms in cancer treatment and progression in osteosarcoma and glioblastoma, or bone and brain cancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A circadian rhythm<\/a> is the body\u2019s natural cycle of sleeping, waking, and eating, cued by environmental factors such as light and dark and regulated by the body\u2019s internal circadian clock. Almost all cells in the body have their own circadian clocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because cells\u2019 biological processes vary over 24 hours, the time of day medications are taken can affect how well they work. That\u2019s why doctors recommend taking some medications at a certain time of day. Optimizing the effect of treatment through timing is referred to as chronotherapy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most cancer treatments are given without consideration to the time of day. However, Lee said that\u2019s a mistake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He recently tested how effective different anti-cancer drugs were at shrinking osteosarcoma tumors in the lab based on the time of day they were administered and found that timing matters<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOsteosarcoma cells show different responses to treatment depending on what time they\u2019re treated,\u201d Lee said. \u201cThe best time of day depends on the drug.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cClock genes\u201d that regulate circadian rhythms in cells could be another target for cancer treatments. Tumors have two kinds of cells: cancer stem cells<\/a> at the core and regular cancer cells on the periphery or the outside of the tumor. Most chemotherapies are better at killing cells in the periphery than in the core, and tumors can regrow from the core after treatment, causing a relapse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lee found in lab testing that targeting clock gene molecules made treatments more effective at killing cancer cells in the core, which could reduce the risk of relapse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another focus of Lee\u2019s research is investigating how sleep deprivation and disruption to circadian rhythms affect tumor development. Past research has shown that circadian rhythm disruption, like chronic jet lag, can have profoundly negative consequences<\/a> for people\u2019s health. Building on this, Lee\u2019s prior research uncovered how chronic circadian disturbances speed up cancer growth<\/a> at the molecular and cellular levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, Lee is exploring whether circadian disruption also increases people\u2019s risk of cancer by affecting the body\u2019s immune system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even young, healthy people\u2019s bodies produce thousands of cancer cells every day. Only the immune system prevents them from becoming a problem: cytotoxic immune cells, the foot soldiers of the immune system, find and destroy cancer cells and other pathogens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But even a single night of sleep deprivation suppresses these immune cells and interferes with their cancer-killing capabilities, Lee found through a bioinformatic analysis of brain cancer models like glioma<\/a>. This creates a \u201cpro-tumor environment\u201d that increases the chances that cancer cells will escape detection and take hold in the body, causing disease. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Neuroscientist and sleep researcher Brieann Satterfield, PhD, is looking at the effects of sleep deprivation and circadian rhythm disruption on cancer in one underserved population in particular: shift workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 15% of the U.S. population does shift work, or work done outside of a typical 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule, such as night shifts. Shift work is associated with a range of poor health outcomes<\/a>, including a greater risk of heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and depression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis population is substantially underserved with regard to health research and clinical practices,\u201d Satterfield said. \u201cThey\u2019re kind of ignored. They\u2019re just this workforce that does everything in the background that most of us don’t even interact with, but they suffer a much higher health burden than the rest of us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shift work has also been classified by the World Health Organization as a probable human carcinogen or likely cause of cancer since 2007.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like Lee, Satterfield and colleagues at the Sleep and Performance Research Center have found that even a few nights of sleep displacement can have striking and negative consequences for cancer risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\nChronotherapy and the Damaging Effect of Sleep Deprivation on Cancer Risk <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Understanding and Addressing Increased Cancer Risk from Shift Work <\/h2>\n\n\n\n