How MMA – no, not that one – adds to cancer risk in older people

Methylmalonic acid, or MMA, is a by-product of our bodies converting food into energy, and builds up as we get older. It promotes a process called metastasis

This process is the main reason people die of cancer. Scientists don’t know why MMA accumulates, but they link it to a high-protein diet

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When our bodies convert food into energy, they produce a by-product called methylmalonic acid, or MMA, that promotes metastasis, the process by which cancer cells spread through our bodies. MMA builds up as we age, and is linked to a diet high in protein, from foods such as meat, eggs, grain, cheese, and pulses (above). Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 8:15pm, 21 Aug 2020Updated: 8:15pm, 21 Aug 2020

As our bodies convert food into energy, they produce debris that accumulates as we age. New research shows that one of these metabolic throwaways plays a potentially deadly role in the development of cancer.

The finding adds to a body of knowledge about the ways in which the ageing process accelerates our chances of developing deadly cancers, but also offers potential avenues for blocking metastasising tumours.

The study, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, grew from work on metastasis, the process by which cancer cells detach from an initial tumour and form new tumours elsewhere in the body. Metastasis is the major reason people die of cancer.

Observations of metastasising cells revealed something intriguing – a high level of something called methylmalonic acid (MMA), a metabolic by-product that appears to accumulate as we get older.

The process of metastasis. Photo: Shutterstock

To examine whether MMA might play a role in metastasis, the scientists examined how lung and breast cancer tumour cells behaved when exposed to blood samples taken from people aged 30 and younger, or 60 and older.