Modeling the energetic cost of cancer as a result of altered energy metabolism: implications for cachexia
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Cachexia affects most patients with incurable cancer. We hypothesize that in metastatic cancer the mass of the tumor as well as its level of anaerobic energy metabolism play a critical role in describing its energetic cost, which results in elevated resting energy expenditure and glucose utilization, leading to cachexia. Prior models of cancer cachexia may have underestimated the specific energetic cost of cancer as they have not taken the range of tumor mass and anaerobic energy metabolism fully into account. METHODS: We therefore modelled the energetic cost of cancer as a function of the percentage of energy the cancer produces anaerobically, based on resting energy expenditure, glucose turnover, glucose recycling, and oxygen consumption in cancer patients found in previous studies. RESULTS: Data from two clinical studies where tumor burden was estimated and resting energy expenditure or oxygen consumption were measured lead to a broad range of estimates of tumor cost from 190 to 470 kcal/kg tumor/day. These values will vary based of the percentage of energy the cancer produces anaerobically (from 0 to 100%), which in and of itself can alter the cost over a 2 to 3-fold range. In addition to the tumor cost/kg and the degree of anaerobic metabolism, the impact on a given individual patient will depend on tumor burden, which can exceed 1 kg in advanced metastatic disease. Considering these dimensions of tumor cost we are able to produce a 2-dimensional map of potential values, with an overall range of 100-1400 kcal/day. CONCLUSIONS: Quantifying the energetic cost of cancer may benefit an understanding of the tumor's causation of cachexia. Our estimates of the range of tumor cost include values that are higher than prior estimates and suggest that in metastatic disease the tumor cost could be expected to eclipse attempts to stabilize energy balance through nutrition support or by drug therapies. Tumor mass and the percentage of anaerobic metabolism in the tumor contribute to the cost of the tumor on the body and potentially lead directly to negative energy balance and increased muscle wasting.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".