Cosmos Magazine 28 November 2018
Cancer treatments can lead to declines in cognitive function a few later, research suggests.
A study published in the journal Cancer
looked at a cohort of 94 women who had undergone radiation treatments
and chemotherapy for breast cancer between three and six years earlier,
and found significant damage to their DNA, including to the repetitive
nucleotide sequences at each end of a chromosome, known as telomeres.
In
one sense, this finding was not surprising. Standard cancer treatments
work by damaging the DNA of tumour cells, and collateral damage to
normal cells is often unavoidable. Reduced telomere activity and loss of
DNA vigour are also markers of biological ageing.
They found that the answer was yes.
The
researchers identified a correlation between levels of DNA damage and
reduced telomere activity with a decline in lower executive function
scores, worse attention and decreased motor speed.
“These findings
are important because they provide further information about what might
be happening after cancer treatment that impacts cognitive decline in
some individuals,” says Carroll.
“The work is novel by identifying
key factors in biological aging and connecting them to cognitive
function, which initiates new avenues of research.”
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