New research suggests that dietary choices may play a significant role in the rapid increase in colon cancer cases among young people.
Scientists at the Cleveland Clinic in the USA analyzed data from more than 60 patients to understand the role of “metabolites” in this cell-mutating disease that begins in the colon.
The term “metabolites” may sound unfamiliar, but it simply refers to the molecules produced during metabolism, often from the food and drink you consume.
Worryingly, the results seem to show that metabolites associated with red and processed meat are among the main causes of early childhood colon cancer. Experts also advise that talking to your doctor about your dietary habits is one of the best ways to prevent this type of cancer.
Dr. Naseer Sangwan, Director of the Microbial Sequencing & Analytics Resource Core, co-led the study. He explained: “Researchers – including ourselves – have started to look at the gut microbiome as a major factor in colon cancer risk. However, our data clearly show that the main factor is diet.”
“We already know the key metabolites associated with the risk of early disease onset, so we can now direct our research in the right direction,” says EurekaAlert!
According to the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, between the early 1990s and 2018, the number of young adults diagnosed with colon cancer in the UK increased by a worrying 22%.
According to Cancer Research, it is the fourth most common type of cancer in the UK, although the main causes are still being intensively researched.
In the Cleveland Clinic study, experts used artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze the differences between patients with colon cancer who develop the disease later in life and those who develop it later in life.
The results showed that younger patients had increased levels of the metabolite “arginine” compared to older patients. It is suspected that these differences could be related to the consumption of red meat and processed meat, which will be investigated in further experiments.
Lead author and gastrointestinal oncologist Suneel Kamath added: “Ultimately, it is not practical to apply our treatment models for those over 60 to younger adults, simply because we cannot perform annual colonoscopy on everyone in the system.”
“It would be much more practical to provide everyone in the system with a simple test to measure a biomarker that determines their risk of colorectal cancer. Then we can provide appropriate screening to those most at risk.”
