- Cancer cells are formed due to normal cells having damaged DNA which the body is unable to repair.
- Cancerous tumors develop from normal cells undergoing the “first mutation hit”. This “hit” is a mutated cell that initiates other cells to mutate and split incorrectly; sending them on the tumorigenic path by providing advantages to the cells, such as growth and survival.
- A study reveals that aerobic exercise (running) produces high amounts of epinephrine, which then produces high counts of NK cells, resulting in the suppression of tumor growth.
- There is little to no information on exercise’s effect on MDSCs. There is a lack of definitive data on the effect of aerobic exercise on the responses of MDSCs towards cancerous tumors.
- It is our goal to determine how aerobic exercise affects the responses of these cells when cancerous tumors are present.
- In the presence of tumors, myeloid-derived suppressor cells are converted and accumulated by the tumor, allowing the tumor to grow.
- The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of exercise on the MDSC count in cancerous rats. We hypothesize that the positive effects of exercise will decline in MDSC count, thus resulting in smaller tumor size compared to sedentary, or inactive hosts.