SUMMARY: Plenty of studies find anti-inflammatory effects of dietary antioxidants such as green tea for chronic disease. Even in IBD patients, who have a very messed up microbiome (a finding of the American Gut data), the benefits of antioxidant therapy is well documented (see below studies). Read here about a simple EASY N=1 hack for one IBD patient that shut down a mild psoriasis skin flare that began two years ago. They flared psoriasis, but not the autoimmune IBD, eating strict healing diet Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) probably due to a gluten/sugar airborne exposure. The hack that worked for stopping psoriasis: Green Tea, Black Tea with Lemon Juice antioxidant blend! I share their recipe here! It is simple enough that you may want to add it to your immune calming anti-inflammatory arsenal too! Make sure to see below for why it is important to NOT drink Green Tea for antioxidant benefit along with Iron.
Category Archives: Blog: Cancer
Breast microbiome and Cancer Risk Assessment tool
SUMMARY: Recent studies challenge dogma and find that healthy breast tissue is NOT sterile after-all. The breast seems to have its own microbiome of bacteria and such seems protective; dysbiosis (REDUCED richness and/or certain species) was associated with breast cancer. Furthermore, healthy breast tissue had bacteria Sphingomonas yanoikuyae (Proteobacteria), which is better known to degrade pollutants in the environment. In the cancer samples, there was little to none of S. yanoikuyae; this bacteria is able to use estradiols including 17-β estradiol, which are believed to be associated with breast cancer. The authors could not determine causality due to lack of S. yanoikuyae. Learn in this post microbiome implications for breast cancer, free online breast cancer risk assessment tools, ongoing studies personalizing cancer risk for mammogram frequency to reduce false positives, and look over a decent listing for cutting your risk for breast cancer in the first place from Prevention. Included specifically on that list is carotenoid loads which I preach about, including the need to consume carotenoids with the correct healthy fat so as to absorb them. LOWFAT DOES NOT ABSORB THOSE CAROTENOIDS.
Type of fat consumed and breast cancer diagnosis for Mediterranean Diet
SUMMARY: Women (eating the Mediterranean diet) consuming certain healthy fats were less likely to have a breast cancer diagnosis while other fats increased the likelihood of a breast cancer diagnosis. Seventeen women on the low-fat diet developed breast cancer, compared with 10 on the Mediterranean diet with nuts and eight on the Mediterranean diet with olive oil.
In particular, women consuming a Mediterranean diet supplemented with extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) were less likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer. The women in the extra virgin olive oil-heavy Mediterranean diet group got 22% of their total calories from the oil, on average. However, the researchers wrote that getting at least 15% of total calories in the form of extra virgin olive oil “seems to be instrumental for obtaining this significant protection.” If you use EVOO, please make sure you use unadulterated EVOO… scroll down to the lightbulb here for those details.
We see & perceive things differently; Neither is superior to the other
SUMMARY: The ‘blue/black white/gold dress‘ incident is a really good way of acknowledging that people see and perceive things differently and one way is not necessarily superior to the other. I see and appreciate this in every diet conversation I have. I focus a lot on diet; but lifestyle tweaks help many achieve wellness when clean diet isn’t enough. Initial microbiome studies show that stress can result in changes to the gut microbial community, specifically bacteria in the genus Lactobacillus are consistently reduced. If clean diet isn’t enough, move onto stress busters that data shows literally reduce inflammatory markers — affirmations and meditation do such.
Colon Cancer, Biofilm, Bacteria, Probiotics Role
SUMMARY: New Colon Cancer, Biofilm, Bacteria, Probiotics ROLE in Colon Cancer findings out of John Hopkins: biofilms are present in 89% of tumors (13/15 cancers & 4/4 polyps) removed from right ascending colon, but only in 12% of tumors on the left side (2/15 cancers and 0 polyps).
Most colorectal cancers are known to develop slowly, over five to 10 years, “and it’s a disease that’s curable if you diagnose it early,” says Cynthia L. Sears, M.D., professor of medicine and oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health. Well… therein lies the rub as the gold standard test, colonoscopy, many do not do. Additionally, as discussed in the post, “YOUNG ADULT NEWLY DIAGNOSED COLON & RECTAL CANCER DOUBLES BY 2030,” there is an alarming increase in colon cancer among the young who typically do not have colonoscopy.
Clinical Trials Lack Diversity & Microbiome = Cancer Disparity Outcomes
Under representation of minority populations in clinical trials is a real problem, and it results in significant cancer outcome disparities for under represented groups (discussed at the bottom of this post). What this means is that the findings of clinical trials are limited and can not necessarily be generalized among those minorities under represented or omitted in the study population. Such subgroups are missing information on how they would respond to the trial’s treatment. “Potential racial, ethnic and other differences in response to drugs are important to FDA’s efforts to help ensure that the safety and effectiveness of drugs are studied in all people who will use the products once they are approved.” Christine Merenda, M.P.H., R.N. , Office of Minority Health (OMH) project manager.
By 2030 adult young colon cancer diagnoses doubles
SUMMARY: Learn here that adult young colon cancer diagnoses doubles by 2030.
The number of young adults (aged 20 to 34, and 35 to 49 years) with newly diagnosed colorectal cancer is anticipated to nearly double by 2030.
Worth repeating: By 2030 adult young colon cancer diagnoses doubles
For ages 20 to 34 years, colon cancer increase is 90.0% and rectal cancer increase is 124.2% by the year 2030.
For ages 35 to 49 years, colon cancer increase is 27.7% and rectal cancer increase is 46.0% by the year 2030.
For patients under age 34, the increase is across all stages of disease: localized (confined to the colon or rectum), regional (contiguous and adjacent organ spread, such as to the lymph nodes, kidney and pelvic wall) and distant (referring to remote metastases).
CANCER MICROBIOME IS MESSED UP?
SUMMARY: CANCER MICROBIOME. Be it linked to the gut microbiome or specific tissue,… It was just a matter of time until researchers linked cancer to the microbiome.
Cancer Microbiome
“These studies demonstrate that microbiota can increase or decrease cancer susceptibility and progression by diverse mechanisms such as by modulating inflammation, influencing the genomic stability of host cells and producing metabolites that function as histone deacetylase inhibitors to epigenetically regulate host gene expression. One might consider microbiota as tractable environmental factors because they are highly quantifiable and relatively stable within an individual compared with our exposures to external agents. At the same time, however, diet can modulate the composition of microbial communities within our gut, and this supports the idea that probiotics and prebiotics can be effective chemoprevention strategies. The trajectory of where the current work is headed suggests that microbiota will continue to provide insight into the basic mechanisms of carcinogenesis and that microbiota will also become targets for therapeutic intervention.” – Emerging roles of the microbiome in cancer, Carcinogenesis. 2013 Dec 3. [Epub ahead of print]