Science at UM [S03-ep15]: Diet and Cancer

[Podcast] - Published on January 25, 2024 in Science and Society

This week on "Science at UM," Sophie Tissot, a doctoral student at the Mivegec, talks to us about evolution, cancer, and diet. Our report takes us on a tour of the PhénoArch with Bertrand Muller. Finally, our last-minute guest is Agnès Pesenti, who introduces us to the upcoming Science Bar. A program co-produced with Divergence FM and broadcast every Wednesday at 6 p.m. on 93.9.

It’s January 24th; the first month of the new year has barely passed, and yet New Year’s resolutions are already a distant memory. By the way, do you know what the most common resolutions are among the French? The ever-so-original trio: exercising, eating better, and, of course, losing weight.

So we can talk about the dictates of fashion, the tyranny of the body, and so on, but perhaps this obsession with food in our modern societies also betrays a sense that something is fundamentally out of balance. We know the harmful effects of our diets on our bodies. The links between diet and cancer, for example, have been widely demonstrated. It’s sad, but the more you eat—and the richer your diet—the greater the risk of fueling your future cancer.

Today, evolutionary oncology is taking a close look at these links between food availability and tumorigenesis and is trying to understand whether this correlation exists only in mammals or whether humans share this trait with species that are very different from them evolutionarily, such as fish or hydras. To do this, science is doing what it does best: experimenting and comparing.

We discuss this with Sophie Tissot, a doctoral student at the Mivegec laboratory and at CREEC, the Center for Ecological and Evolutionary Cancer Research. She is the lead author of this study, titled “The impact of food availability on tumorigenesis is conserved throughout evolution,” published in the journal *Scientific Reports*.

In the second half of the program, Bertrand Muller, a researcher at Lepse—the laboratory for plant ecophysiology under environmental stress—introduces us to PhénoArch, a phenotyping platform dedicated to analyzing the genetic determinants of plant responses to drought, temperature, and light.

Finally, for our last-minute interview, Agnès Pesenti, head of science communication at the University of Marseille, is here to extend her best wishes and announce the reopening of the Science Bar, with an upcoming lecture on January 25th on the topic: “Should we be afraid of artificial intelligence?”

At UM Science, you’ve got the program—let’s get started!

Co-production: Divergence FM / University of Montpellier
Host: Lucie Lecherbonnier
Interview: Aline Périault / Lucie Lecherbonnier
Production: Alice Rollet / Tom Chevalier

Tune in to the show “A l’UM la science” on Divergence FM 93.9

Keywords: Science at UM, Research, Science, Company