Integrative Health &
Applied Nutrition
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Integrative Health &
Applied Nutrition
magazine (IHCAN)
Editor’s note
September 2024
What’s going on with colon cancer and the boom in cases among younger and younger people?
So far, the “experts” have blamed junk food and consequent obesity, random weirdness in the microbiome, meat (which Harvard and Cambridge also think gives you diabetes !?) and now… intermittent fasting!
That last one comes from an MIT study conducted on mice. Of course, the “Intermittent fasting gives you colon cancer” headlines didn’t accurately reflect the study.
What happened was that in a re-feeding phase after a 24-hour fast, the researchers deliberately turned on a cancer-causing gene in one unlucky group of rodents. Senior author Prof Omer Yilmaz actually said: “I want to emphasise that this was all done in mice, using very well-defined cancer mutations. In humans it’s going to be a much more complex state…..but it does lead us to the following notion: fasting is very healthy, but if you’re unlucky and you’re refeeding after a fasting, and you get exposed to a mutagen, like a charred steak or something, you might actually be increasing your chances of developing a lesion that can go on to give rise to cancer”.
The mechanism they’re investigating is a surge of stem cells that occurs when coming out of a fast. Too many stem cells + mutagens = potential cancer. That’s PROBABLY why EVERY practitioner deploying therapeutic fasting since the beginning of time has said that breaking the fast is a most critical time and has to be done slowly and carefully, using fluids first and then specific foods. Not a charred steak.
But meanwhile, what IS going on with colon cancer?
Colon cancer rates have increased 52% among 25-to-49-year-olds since the early 90s. Bowel cancer is the fourth most common cancer in the UK. 1 in 17 men and 1 in 20 women will be diagnosed with bowel cancer during their lifetime and almost 43,000 in the UK a year are diagnosed with it, according to Bowel Cancer UK. It’s supposed to mainly a¥ect the over-50s, but more than 2,600 new cases are diagnosed in the under-50s every year,
US stats are even more alarming: “Cancer of the colon and rectum now ranks as the leading cause of cancer-related death among men aged 20 to 49 in the US”, says the Cleveland Clinic. For women it’s now second behind only breast cancer, according to a 2024 report from the American Cancer Society. “We see plenty of younger people with colorectal cancer who are healthy and fit”, says Cleveland surgeon David Liska, MD, “So, it’s not just obesity or having a sedentary lifestyle. It’s a combination of factors”.
Another team at Cleveland are convinced gut bacteria may be contributing. Oncologist Alok Khorana, MD, and his team say they identified
unique tumour-related bacteria in the younger cohort, including Akkermansia and Bacteroides. Prof Charles Swanton, oncologist and Chief
…
...Read more...
Clinician at Cancer Research UK, suggests that some early onset bowel cancer may indeed be triggered by bacteria in the gut – that are being unbalanced by increasing consumption of junk food. I’m not convinced. Most Brits and Americans have been slamming down junk food – and junk fast food – for decades. And the “healthy and fit” well-under-50s brigade aren’t eating that rubbish.
Something else is going on.
My bet? Microplastics. They’re infesting us. And you don’t need to look any farther for a cause of dysbiosis. Here’s one of the latest comments, from a review by Prof Jean Demarquoy, PhD, University of Bourgogne: “Although the potential microbial degradation of certain MPs is recognised, the dysbiosis induced by these particles is widely acknowledged as a threat, impacting the balance and diversity of gut microbiota.”.
Any other ideas?
Nutrition research takes another hit.
The University of Cambridge has pushed the already doubtful field of nutritional epidemiology into even muddier waters with their initiative to include unpublished data in their meta-analysis that alleges a link between meat and diabetes. “By including this previously unpublished study data the authors considerably expanded the evidence base and reduced the potential for bias from the exclusion of existing research”, says Cambridge. So all bets are o¥ now, apparently, since we can all use unpublished data to draw conclusions and call it “expanding the evidence base”. (Report page 6.)
Harvard’s T. C .Chan School of Public Health, which seems committed to an anti-meat, plantbased diet agenda, has unsurprisingly found yet another way to vilify meat. Publishing last month, perhaps in concert with Cambridge, they’re now saying that haeme iron in meat increases diabetes risk. Excuse me for being simplistic, but it seems more likely that iron overload is to blame, rather than meat intake by itself. But more worrying to my mind is tat Harvard, like Cambridge, may also be using some sleight of hand to get the results they want.
“Compared to prior studies that relied solely on epidemiological data” (subtext – that didn’t quite give us the results we wanted), “we integrated multiple layers of information, including epidemiological data, conventional metabolic biomarkers, and cutting-edge metabolomics”… “This allowed us to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of the association between iron intake and T2D risk, as well as potential metabolic pathways underlying this association”
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We’re always fully referenced
We don’t put a big emphasis on being “evidence based” in the conventional sense, mainly because the bulk of the evidence used in meta analyses and systematic reviews and to produce “guidelines” is not to be trusted. As Prof Richard David Feinman puts it, the meta-analysis is the “most dangerous” activity plaguing modern medical literature. And RCTs are of no use in assessing complex conditions that we address with multiple interventions – such as Dr Dale Bredesen’s Alzheimer’s protocol. Likewise, we highly value the hard-won clinical experience of multiple practitioners accumulated over the years and handed down over generations of evolving natural medicine practice. That said, we do put a lot of effort into referencing our features. References are online to save space, available within our members area.
We’re always fully referenced
We don’t put a big emphasis on being “evidence based” in the conventional sense, mainly because the bulk of the evidence used in meta analyses and systematic reviews and to produce “guidelines” is not to be trusted. As Prof Richard David Feinman puts it, the meta-analysis is the “most dangerous” activity plaguing modern medical literature. And RCTs are of no use in assessing complex conditions that we address with multiple interventions – such as Dr Dale Bredesen’s Alzheimer’s protocol. Likewise, we highly value the hard-won clinical experience of multiple practitioners accumulated over the years and handed down over generations of evolving natural medicine practice. That said, we do put a lot of effort into referencing our features. References are online to save space, available within our members area.
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