Sports-induced blood sugar utilization prevents development of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a malignant tumor of extremely high lethality in humans. Pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PanIN) is the predominant precancerous lesion for PDAC and is frequently detected in the normal and inflamed pancreas. However, only a few of PanIN eventually progress into PDAC. Thus, understanding of the regulation of PanIN-to-PDAC conversion appears to be critical for prevention of the occurrence of PDAC. Here, we evaluated the effect of sports on the progression of PanIN into PDAC in an established mouse PDAC model (Ptf1a-Cre; K-ras fx/fx). We found that swimming (3 min twice per day) since 12 weeks of age significantly decreased the incidence of the development of PDAC in these PanIN-baring mice at 24 weeks of age. Moreover, swimming significantly decreased fasting blood sugar and improved glucose response in these mice, compared to the control. Furthermore, implantation of insulin pellets into the mice not only reduced fasting blood sugar and improved glucose response, but also significantly reduced the incidence of development of PDAC, which mimicked the effect of swimming. Taken together, our study suggests that sports-induced blood sugar utilization may prevent development of PDAC.