New study confirms that breast and brain cancer cells easily migrate to body's 'sweet spots'

Cancer cells do extremely well in body's so-called sweet spots, new research shows.

According to a recent story by Lee Bullen of Zenger News in Newsweek magazine, a group of researchers led by the University of Minnesota Twin Cities have "shed new light on how cancer thrives."

Previous studies, the article says, showed that cancer cells — which can "sense the stiffness of the environment they are in, from hard bone and tough muscle to soft, fatty tissue" — have a sweet spot "of stiffness…where they can move faster."

The latest study, published in the scientific journal "Nature Materials," indicates that the sweet spot is "a just-right Goldilocks spot somewhere in the middle."

David Odds, PhD

Bullen's story quotes David Odde, PhD and professor at the university's Department of Bio-medical Engineering, as saying that "this discovery challenges the current thinking in the field, which is that cells only move toward stiffer environments. I think that this finding will change how people think about this phenomenon."

He added, "We're basically decoding how cancer cells invade tissue, they don't just move randomly. They actually have particular ways in which they like to move, and if we can understand the, we may be better able to trip them up."

The researchers had analyzed both breast and brain cancer.

More research information is available in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.