Surprisingly, large animals such as whales and elephants They are much less likely to get cancer than other animals, and therefore their chances of facing death are lower.

What about large animals? way to fight cancer How does he know that?

In general, large animals have a much lower risk of cancer than mice or humans.

However, animals with large bodies and long lifespans have more body cells by further division of these cellsThe risk of developing cancer is expected to be greater than in short-lived and small creatures.

However, elephants and whales, whose average lifespan is 80 years, show that this perspective is not correct. This situation also with peto paradox is also related.

Richard Peto argues that elephants, whales and other cancer-resistant animals provide a solution to the paradox he posed. to larger, longer-lived bodies It suggests that they must have acquired certain cancer suppressive mechanisms to develop cancer.

According to Peto, these large, long-lived animals would quickly die of cancer if they did not have these mechanisms.

For this reason large animals a certain type of adaptation developed He was persistent in this. Also in 2015, a team found several pieces of evidence that supported Peto’s theory.

These researchers examined the genomes of Asian and African elephants and discovered that Tumor suppressor gene called TP53 He discovered that he had twenty copies.

Another study found that elephants have a gene called Leukemia Inhibitory Factor. There are 11 extra copies understood. The job of this gene was to promote cell death in response to DNA damage.

Several studies on this have shown that even if an elephant gets cancer, it is rarely the case he died for this reason revealed. In summary, the bodies of large creatures develop various defense mechanisms to fight cancer.

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