Johar D, Mahmoud K, Zaky S. Perspectives on the bioenergetic dysregulation in insulin-resistant patients comorbid with cancer. World J Transl Med 2026; 12(3): 124147 [DOI: 10.5528/wjtm.124147]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Dina Johar, PhD, Department of Biochemistry and Nutrition, Faculty of Women for Arts, Sciences and Education, Ain Shams University, Asma Fahme Street, Heliopolis, Cairo 11757, Egypt. dinajohar@gu.edu.eg
Research Domain of This Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Article-Type of This Article
review-article
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Baishideng Publishing Group Inc, 7041 Koll Center Parkway, Suite 160, Pleasanton, CA 94566, USA
Share the Article
Johar D, Mahmoud K, Zaky S. Perspectives on the bioenergetic dysregulation in insulin-resistant patients comorbid with cancer. World J Transl Med 2026; 12(3): 124147 [DOI: 10.5528/wjtm.124147]
World J Transl Med. Sep 28, 2026; 12(3): 124147 Published online Sep 28, 2026. doi: 10.5528/wjtm.124147
Perspectives on the bioenergetic dysregulation in insulin-resistant patients comorbid with cancer
Dina Johar, Khaled Mahmoud, Samy Zaky
Dina Johar, Department of Biochemistry and Nutrition, Faculty of Women for Arts, Sciences and Education, Ain Shams University, Cairo 11757, Egypt
Khaled Mahmoud, Department of Pharmacognosy, National Research Centre, Giza 12622, Egypt
Samy Zaky, Hepatogastroenterology and Infectious Diseases Department, Faculty of Medicine, Al-Azhar University, Cairo 11651, Egypt
Author contributions: Johar D contributed to the conception and design of the study, interpretation of literature data, writing, and generation of graphs; Mahmoud K contributed to revisions; Johar D, Mahmoud K, and Zaky S contributed to discussion and review of the manuscript; Mahmoud K and Zaky S contributed to supervision; and Zaky S contributed to administration; All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
AI contribution statement: No AI tool was involved in the generation of research data, interpretation of results, or formulation of conclusions.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Corresponding author: Dina Johar, PhD, Department of Biochemistry and Nutrition, Faculty of Women for Arts, Sciences and Education, Ain Shams University, Asma Fahme Street, Heliopolis, Cairo 11757, Egypt. dinajohar@gu.edu.eg
Received: June 9, 2026 Revised: July 19, 2026 Accepted: August 10, 2026 Published online: September 28, 2026 Processing time: 87 Days and 16.1 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: This perspective proposes that among patients with cancer, those with insulin resistance exhibit reduced platelet mitochondrial bioenergetics compared with cancer patients without insulin resistance or healthy controls and that platelet mitochondrial profiling may serve as an early marker of mitochondrial dysfunction in this population. It further hypothesizes that dipeptidyl peptidase 4 inhibition may ameliorate insulin resistance in cancer patients and proposes a cell culture model to test this hypothesis. The article’s clinical relevance lies in potentially identifying non-invasive biomarkers for metabolic dysfunction in patients with cancer and exploring dipeptidyl peptidase 4 (DPP4) inhibitors as therapeutics. Strengths include the integration of cancer biology, metabolic syndrome pathophysiology, and mitochondrial bioenergetics and the proposal of testable frameworks.
