Cardiometabolic Medications That Inhibit mTOR Might Help Prevent or Treat Cancer

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Dr. George Lundberg has more than 30 years' combined experience as Editor-in-Chief of JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), the 10 AMA specialty journals, AM News, Medscape, The Medscape Journal of Medicine, eMedicine from WebMD, and MedPage Today from Everyday Health. He is currently Editor-in-Chief at Cancer Commons where he writes this Curious Dr. George column.

Many people believe that cancer is a metabolic disease. A biological process known as the mTOR pathway controls cellular metabolism by way of central signaling, and it is involved in tumor growth. Here, our Curious Dr. George asks William H. Bestermann Jr, MD, an internal medicine doctor, how medications that target the protein mTOR and its associated pathway could prevent or treat cancer. Dr. Bestermann is Senior Clinical Advisor at Congruity Health.

Curious Dr. George: What drugs that are currently approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inhibit mTOR and might be worthy of testing for potential off-label use for cancer prevention or therapy?

William H. Bestermann Jr, MD: A search including the terms mTOR and cancer in PubMed brings up 125,000 articles on the subject. Aberrant mTOR activation and signaling play a central role in many malignancies. Mutations that persistently activate mTOR are a basis of many familial cancer syndromes.

So, what is mTOR? It is an abbreviation for the mechanistic target of rapamycin, which is a natural compound produced by a fungus. Rapamycin is an antibiotic that is slowly released from the most modern heart artery stents to keep them from blocking with scar tissue and inflammation. It accomplishes that by inhibiting the protein mTOR, a master metabolic genetic switch. The mTOR pathway regulates many metabolic processes. In the fetus and child, it is essential to coordinate food availability with growth. Overeating, excess abdominal fat, and tobacco smoke cause increased oxidant production and growth factor signaling, which activate mTOR to increase arterial thickness, heart size, and the likelihood of cancer. mTOR has a reciprocal relationship with the protein AMPK, another genetic master metabolic switch. When mTOR is switched on, AMPK is switched off. mTOR and AMPK are a final common signaling pathway for genetic signaling that causes heart disease and malignancy. Medications that block oxidant production from that signaling or directly impact the mTOR/AMPK axis inhibit malignant transformation and tumor growth.

Several cardiometabolic medications decrease oxidant production and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) activation to switch off mTOR and switch on AMPK. These include ACE inhibitors like lisinopril, ARBs like losartan, statins, and mineralocorticoid receptors (MR) like spironolactone. Smoking cessation has the same effect. Caloric restriction, intermittent fasting, rapamycin, exercise, and metformin directly inhibit mTOR and activate AMPK. SGLT2 inhibitors directly activate AMPK. These components of optimal medical therapy interfere with the core biology that causes cardiovascular disease and cancer. That is why they have a greater impact on major cardiovascular events and all-cause mortality than their impact on the target risk factor. These interventions don’t merely lower the target risk factor, they interfere with the molecular biology that causes cardiovascular diseases and cancer. They protect cells and organs.

Medications with a structure and function similar to rapamycin are called rapalogs. These are used to treat cancer and prevent organ transplant rejection, and they have potential in several additional conditions. The cardiometabolic medications listed in the previous paragraph do the same thing by directly or indirectly switching off mTOR and activating AMPK. Rapalogs inhibit both mTORC1 and mTORC2. The effect on mTORC1 is beneficial, and inhibiting mTORC2 may have harmful side effects. Like rapalogs, metformin has a beneficial effect in cancer prevention and treatment, which it produces by directly and specifically inhibiting mTORC1 and activating AMPK. Statins and ACE inhibitors are also associated with decreased cancer incidence. Similarly, high aldosterone levels have been associated with increased cancer risk, and eplerenone blocks those effects in a highly specific manner.

Research to further evaluate cardiometabolic medications for cancer prevention and treatment benefit should be a priority.

Dr. Bestermann can be reached at whbester@gmail.com.

Related links:

Might Cancer Be a Metabolic Disease?

Pancreatic Cancer: Why Diet Is Important

Hydrogen Peroxide Appears to Treat Pre-Cancerous Oral Lesion in “N-of-One” Experiment

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