The answer lies in how quickly your body size evolves. Birds and mammals that have reached large sizes have been found to reduce the prevalence of cancer. For example, a common dolphin Delphinus Delphis Along with most other whales and dolphins (called Kusachi people), they evolved to reach their large body size. Three times faster than other mammals. but, The cervix tends There is less cancer than expected.
Larger species face higher cancer risk, but those reaching their sizes have rapidly evolved mechanisms to mitigate it, such as lower mutation rates and enhanced DNA repair mechanisms. So, rather than contradicting the rules of the coop, Our discovery refines it.
Large bodies often evolve, but not too fast in groups with high cancer burden. This means that the cancer threat may have shaped the pace of evolution.
Humans have evolved relatively rapidly to their current body size. Based on this, we are expected to have similar cancer prevalences, as we evolved at a much faster rate. However, it is important to note that our results cannot explain the actual prevalence of cancer in humans. It is also not an easy statistic to estimate.
Human cancers are complex stories to solve, with many factors affecting many types and their prevalence. For example, many people are not only modern medicine, Various lifestyles This affects the risk of cancer. For this reason, we did not include humans in our analysis.
Fighting against cancer
Understand How species evolve naturally Cancer defense has important implications for human medicine. For example, naked mole rats have been studied for this purpose. Very low cancer prevalence In the hope that it will uncover new ways to prevent or treat cancer in humans. The exact mechanism of cancer resistance remains largely a mystery, as only a small number of cancer cases were observed in reared molar rats.
At the same time, our findings raise new questions. Although soon-to-evolved birds and mammals appear to have stronger anti-cancer mechanisms, amphibians and reptiles did not show the same pattern. Large species had a high prevalence of cancer, regardless of how quickly they evolved. This may be due to differences in regenerative ability. Some amphibians, like salamanders, can Regenerates all your hands and feet– A process involving many cell divisions that can be exploited by cancer.
Putting cancer in an evolutionary context has been able to reveal that its prevalence increases with body size. I’ll study this Evolutionary weapons race It unlocks new insights into how nature fights cancer and how we do the same.
Joanna BakerPostdoctoral researcher in evolutionary biology, Reading University and George Butlercareer development fellow in cancer evolution; UCL. This article has been republished conversation Under the Creative Commons license. Please read Original article.
