Year: 2021

Bowel habits written in the DNA: New clues for irritable bowel syndrome

In a large-scale study published in Cell Genomics, researchers studied the DNA of more than 160,000 people who provided information on the frequency of their bowel movements. Genetic profiles and specific genes were identified, which influence bowel habits and susceptibility to irritable bowel syndrome, the most common gastrointestinal disorder.

How often people move the bowels is important for wellbeing and reflects the correct functioning of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract in digesting and absorbing nutrients while excreting waste products of digestion and toxic substances. Irregular bowel habits and altered gut motility, including constipation and diarrhea, are often observed in common gastrointestinal conditions like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a disorder that affects up to 10% of the population worldwide. The precise mechanisms regulating peristalsis (the action of intestinal muscles pushing food and feces along the GI tract), as well as the reasons why this is often altered in IBS, are unknown. They may be hidden in our genome, it turns out.

An international team coordinated by Mauro D’Amato, Ikerbasque Research Professor at CIC bioGUNE in Spain, in a research article published online in the journal Cell Genomics, have demonstrated for the first time that the frequency of defecation is a heritable character in humans, and that specific genetic profiles influence bowel habits as well as predisposition to IBS. They studied 167,875 individuals from population-based cohorts in the UK (UK Biobank), the Netherlands (LifeLines-Deep), Belgium (Flemish Gut Flora Project), Sweden (PopCol), and U.S. (Genes for Good), and correlated their genetic makeup with questionnaire data, mostly in relation to a simple query about the number of times one opens the bowels every day (the “stool frequency,” as they called it in the study).

They discovered that among people with higher (or lower) stool frequency, specific DNA changes were more common than in the rest of the population. These changes, found in 14 regions of the human genome, involved several genes that were studied more in detail: “We were surprised how much sense these new findings make, highlighting multiple molecules whose role in gut motility was already known from clinical studies, including the communication between the brain and the gut,” says Ferdinando Bonfiglio, first author of the study. Some of the genes reported in the study produce neurotransmitters, hormones, and other molecules especially active in the brain and nerve cells involved in the control of intestinal peristalsis, and even targeted pharmaceutically to induce bowel movements in previous studies (like BDNF). “These results are very exciting and warrant follow-up studies: once more stool frequency genes are unequivocally identified, we may have a battery of new drug targets to be exploited for the treatment of constipation, diarrhea and common dysmotility syndromes like IBS” explains the corresponding author Mauro D’Amato.

The team also reported evidence of a common genetic background for stool frequency and IBS, and that this information may be used to identify individuals at increased risk of disease. This was more informative for IBS predominantly characterized by diarrhea (IBS-D). The researchers translated genetic findings from their study into simple numerical values (called polygenic scores), to estimate the probability of having altered stool frequency in each individual. Using data from UK Biobank, they then showed that people with higher polygenic scores were up to five times more likely to suffer from IBS-D than the rest of the population.

“The genetic information and the polygenic scores obtained in this study can be refined and eventually contribute to the classification of patients into different treatment groups, hopefully leading to improved therapeutic precision when aiming to bring gut dysmotility and altered bowel habits back to normal. This would be a major step forward in IBS, a common condition for which there is currently no effective treatment that works for all,” concludes Mauro D’Amato.

Source:https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-12-bowel-habits-written-dna-clues.html

Abdominal Hernia Repair: What to Expect at Home

This care sheet gives you a general idea about how long it will take for you to recover. But each person recovers at a different pace. Follow the steps below to get better as quickly as possible.

Your Recovery

After surgery to repair your hernia, you are likely to have pain for a few days. You may also feel tired and have less energy than normal. This is common.

You should feel better after a few days and will probably feel much better in 7 days.

For several weeks you may feel discomfort or pull in the hernia repair when you move. You may have some bruising around the area of the repair. This is normal.

How can you care for yourself at home?

Activity

• Rest when you feel tired. Getting enough sleep will help you recover.
• Try to walk each day. Start by walking a little more than you did the day before. Bit by bit, increase the amount you walk. Walking boosts blood flow and helps prevent pneumonia and constipation.
• If your doctor gives you an abdominal binder to wear, use it as directed. This is an elastic bandage that wraps around your belly and upper hips. It helps support your belly muscles after surgery.
• Avoid strenuous activities, such as biking, jogging, weight lifting, or aerobic exercise, until your doctor says it is okay.
• Avoid lifting anything that would make you strain. This may include heavy grocery bags and milk containers, a heavy briefcase or backpack, cat litter or dog food bags, a vacuum cleaner, or a child.
• Ask your doctor when you can drive again.
• Most people are able to return to work within 1 to 2 weeks after surgery. But if your job requires that you do heavy lifting or strenuous activity, you may need to take 4 to 6 weeks off from work.
• You may shower 24 to 48 hours after surgery, if your doctor okays it. Pat the cut (incision) dry. Do not take a bath for the first 2 weeks, or until your doctor tells you it is okay.
• Ask your doctor when it is okay for you to have sex.

Diet

• You can eat your normal diet. If your stomach is upset, try bland, low-fat foods like plain rice, broiled chicken, toast, and yogurt.
• Drink plenty of fluids (unless your doctor tells you not to).
• You may notice that your bowel movements are not regular right after your surgery. This is common. Avoid constipation and straining with bowel movements. You may want to take a fibre supplement every day. If you have not had a bowel movement after a couple of days, ask your doctor about taking a mild laxative.

Medicines

• Your doctor will tell you if and when you can restart your medicines. You will also be given instructions about taking any new medicines.
• If you take aspirin or some other blood thinner, ask your doctor if and when to start taking it again. Make sure that you understand exactly what your doctor wants you to do.
• Be safe with medicines. Take pain medicines exactly as directed.
  • If the doctor gave you a prescription medicine for pain, take it as prescribed.
  • If you are not taking a prescription pain medicine, ask your doctor if you can take an over-the-counter medicine.
• If your doctor prescribed antibiotics, take them as directed. Do not stop taking them just because you feel better. You need to take the full course of antibiotics.
• If you think your pain medicine is making you sick to your stomach:
  • Take your medicine after meals (unless your doctor has told you not to).
  • Ask your doctor for a different pain medicine.

Incision care

• If you have strips of tape on the cut (incision) the doctor made, leave the tape on for a week or until it falls off. Or follow your doctor’s instructions for removing the tape.
• If you have staples closing the cut, you will need to visit your doctor in 1 to 2 weeks to have them removed.
• Wash the area daily with warm, soapy water, and pat it dry. Don’t use hydrogen peroxide or alcohol, which can slow healing. You may cover the area with a gauze bandage if it weeps or rubs against clothing. Change the bandage every day.

Other instructions

• Hold a pillow over your incision when you cough or take deep breaths. This will support your belly and decrease your pain.
• Do breathing exercises at home as instructed by your doctor. This will help prevent pneumonia.
• If you had laparoscopic surgery, you may also have pain in your shoulder. The pain usually lasts about a day or two.

Follow-up care is a key part of your treatment and safety. Be sure to make and go to all appointments, and call your doctor or nurse call line if you are having problems. It’s also a good idea to know your test results and keep a list of the medicines you take.

Call your doctor or nurse call line now or seek immediate medical care if:

• You are sick to your stomach or cannot drink fluids.
• You have signs of a blood clot in your leg (called a deep vein thrombosis), such as:
  • Pain in your calf, back of the knee, thigh, or groin.
  • Redness and swelling in your leg or groin.
• You have signs of infection, such as:
  • Increased pain, swelling, warmth, or redness.
  • Red streaks leading from the incision.
  • Pus draining from the incision.
  • A fever.
• You cannot pass stools or gas.
• You have pain that does not get better after you take pain medicine.
• You have loose stitches, or your incision comes open.
• Bright red blood has soaked through the bandage over your incision.

Watch closely for changes in your health, and be sure to contact your doctor or nurse’s call line if you have any problems.

Source: Credit: https://myhealth.alberta.ca/Health/aftercareinformation/pages/conditions.aspx?hwid=bo1696

COVID patients on SSRI antidepressants are less likely to die, study finds

Electronic health records compared outcomes for patients across the country

Date: November 15, 2021

Source: University of California – San Francisco

Summary: A large analysis of health records from 87 health care centers across the United States found that people taking a class of antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), particularly fluoxetine, were significantly less likely to die of COVID-19 than a matched control group.

A large analysis of health records from 87 health care centers across the United States found that people taking a class of antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), particularly fluoxetine, were significantly less likely to die of COVID-19 than a matched control group.

The results add to a body of evidence indicating that SSRIs may have beneficial effects against the worst symptoms of COVID-19, although large randomized clinical trials are needed to prove this.

“We can’t tell if the drugs are causing these effects, but the statistical analysis is showing significant association,” said Marina Sirota, Ph.D., associate professor of pediatrics and a member of the Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute (BCHSI) at UC San Francisco. “There’s power in the numbers.”

The UCSF-Stanford research team analyzed electronic health records from the Cerner Real World COVID-19 de-identified database, which had information from almost 500,000 patients across the U.S. This included 83,584 adult patients diagnosed with COVID-19 between January and September 2020. Of those, 3,401 patients were prescribed SSRIs.

The large size of the dataset enabled researchers to compare the outcomes of patients with COVID-19 on SSRIs to a matched set of patients with COVID-19 who were not taking them, thus teasing out the effects of age, sex, race, ethnicity, and comorbidities associated with severe COVID-19, such as diabetes and heart disease, as well as the other medications the patients were taking.

The results showed that patients taking fluoxetine were 28 percent less likely to die; those taking either fluoxetine or another SSRI called fluvoxamine were 26 percent less likely to die, and the entire group of patients taking any kind of SSRI was 8 percent less likely to die than the matched patient controls.

Though the effects are smaller than those found in recent clinical trials of new antivirals developed by Pfizer and Merck, the researchers said more treatment options are still needed to help bring the pandemic to an end.

“The results are encouraging,” said Tomiko Oskotsky, MD, a research scientist in Sirota’s lab at BCHSI. “It’s important to find as many options as possible for treating any condition. A particular drug or treatment may not work or be well tolerated by everyone. Data from electronic medical records allow us to quickly look into existing drugs that could be repurposed for treating COVID-19 or other conditions.”

Other authors include David K. Stevenson, MD, Ivana Marić, Ph.D., Ronald J. Wong, Ph.D., and Nima Aghaeepour, Ph.D., of Stanford University; and Alice Tang and Boris Oskotsky, Ph.D., of UCSF.

Source Credit:

The results add to a body of evidence indicating that SSRIs may have beneficial effects against the worst symptoms of COVID-19, although large randomized clinical trials are needed to prove this.

“We can’t tell if the drugs are causing these effects, but the statistical analysis is showing significant association,” said Marina Sirota, PhD, associate professor of pediatrics and a member of the Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute (BCHSI) at UC San Francisco. “There’s power in the numbers.”

The UCSF-Stanford research team analyzed electronic health records from the Cerner Real World COVID-19 de-identified database, which had information from almost 500,000 patients across the U.S. This included 83,584 adult patients diagnosed with COVID-19 between January and September 2020. Of those, 3,401 patients were prescribed SSRIs.

The large size of the dataset enabled researchers to compare the outcomes of patients with COVID-19 on SSRIs to a matched set of patients with COVID-19 who were not taking them, thus teasing out the effects of age, sex, race, ethnicity, and comorbidities associated with severe COVID-19, such as diabetes and heart disease, as well as the other medications the patients were taking.

The results showed that patients taking fluoxetine were 28 percent less likely to die; those taking either fluoxetine or another SSRI called fluvoxamine were 26 percent less likely to die, and the entire group of patients taking any kind of SSRI was 8 percent less likely to die than the matched patient controls.

Though the effects are smaller than those found in recent clinical trials of new antivirals developed by Pfizer and Merck, the researchers said more treatment options are still needed to help bring the pandemic to an end.

“The results are encouraging,” said Tomiko Oskotsky, MD, a research scientist in Sirota’s lab at BCHSI. “It’s important to find as many options as possible for treating any condition. A particular drug or treatment may not work or be well tolerated by everyone. Data from electronic medical records allow us to quickly look into existing drugs that could be repurposed for treating COVID-19 or other conditions.”

Other authors include David K. Stevenson, MD, Ivana Marić, Ph.D., Ronald J. Wong, Ph.D., and Nima Aghaeepour, Ph.D., of Stanford University; and Alice Tang and Boris Oskotsky, Ph.D., of UCSF.

Source Credit: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211115123538.htm

Stomach Cancer (Gastric Adenocarcinoma)

Stomach cancer is characterized by the growth of cancerous cells within the lining of the stomach. Also called gastric cancer, this type of cancer is difficult to diagnose because most people typically don’t show symptoms in the earlier stages.

What is stomach cancer?

The National Cancer Institute (NCI)Trusted Source estimates there’ll be approximately 28,000 new cases of stomach cancer in 2017. The NCI also estimates that stomach cancer is 1.7 percent of new cancer cases in the United States.

While stomach cancer is relatively rare compared to other types of cancer, one of the biggest dangers of this disease is the difficulty of diagnosing it. Since stomach cancer usually doesn’t cause any early symptoms, it often goes undiagnosed until after it spreads to other parts of the body. This makes it more difficult to treat.

Though stomach cancer can be hard to diagnose and treat, it’s important to get the knowledge you need to beat the disease.

What causes stomach cancer?

Your stomach (along with the esophagus) is just one part of the upper section of your digestive tract. Your stomach is responsible for digesting food and then moving the nutrients along to the rest of your digestive organs, namely the small and large intestines.

Stomach cancer occurs when normally healthy cells within the upper digestive system become cancerous and grow out of control, forming a tumor. This process happens slowly. Stomach cancer tends to develop over many years.

Risk factors of stomach cancer

Stomach cancer is directly linked to tumors in the stomach. However, there are some factors that might increase your risk of developing these cancerous cells. These risk factors include certain diseases and conditions, such as:

• lymphoma (a group of blood cancers)
• H. pylori bacterial infections (a common stomach infection that can sometimes lead to ulcers)
• tumors in other parts of the digestive system
• stomach polyps (abnormal growths of tissue that form on the lining of the stomach)

Stomach cancer is also more common among:

• older adults, usually people 50 years and older
• men
• smokers
• people with a family history of the disease
• people who are of Asian (especially Korean or Japanese), South American, or Belarusian descent

While your personal medical history can impact your risk of developing stomach cancer, certain lifestyle factors can also play a role. You may be more likely to get stomach cancer if you:

• eat a lot of salty or processed foods
• eat too much meat
• have a history of alcohol abuse
• don’t exercise
• don’t store or cook food properly

You may want to consider getting a screening test if you believe you’re at risk for developing stomach cancer. Screening tests are performed when people are at risk for certain diseases but don’t show symptoms yet.

Symptoms of stomach cancer

According to the NCITrusted Source, there are typically no early signs or symptoms of stomach cancer. Unfortunately, this means that people often don’t know anything is wrong until the cancer has reached an advanced stage.

Some of the most common symptoms of advanced stomach cancer are:

• nausea and vomiting
• frequent heartburn
• loss of appetite, sometimes accompanied by sudden weight loss
• constant bloating
• early satiety (feeling full after eating only a small amount)
• bloody stools
• jaundice
• excessive fatigue
• stomach pain, which may be worse after meals

How is it diagnosed?

Since people with stomach cancer rarely show symptoms in the early stages, the disease is often not diagnosed until it’s more advanced.

To make a diagnosis, your doctor will first perform a physical exam to check for any abnormalities. They may also order a blood test, including a test for the presence of H. pylori bacteria.

More diagnostic tests will need to be done if your doctor believes that you show signs of stomach cancer. Diagnostic tests specifically look for suspected tumors and other abnormalities in the stomach and esophagus. These tests may include:

• an upper gastrointestinal endoscopy
• a biopsy
• imaging tests, such as CT scans and X-rays

Treating stomach cancer

Traditionally, stomach cancer is treated with one or more of the following:

• chemotherapy
• radiation therapy
• surgery
• immunotherapy, such as vaccines and medication

Your exact treatment plan will depend on the origin and stage of the cancer. Age and overall health can also play a role.

Aside from treating cancer cells in the stomach, the goal of treatment is to prevent the cells from spreading. Stomach cancer, when left untreated, may spread to the:

• lungs
• lymph nodes
• bones
• liver

Preventing stomach cancer

Stomach cancer alone can’t be prevented. However, you can lower your risk of developing all cancers by:

• maintaining a healthy weight
• eating a balanced, low-fat diet
• quitting smoking
• exercising regularly

In some cases, doctors may even prescribe medications that can help lower the risk of stomach cancer. This is usually done for people who have other diseases that may contribute to the cancer.

You may also want to consider getting an early screening test. This test can be helpful in detecting stomach cancer. Your doctor may use one of the following screening tests to check for signs of stomach cancer:

• physical exam
• lab tests, such as blood and urine tests
• imaging procedures, such as X-rays and CT scans
• genetic tests

Long-term outlook

Your chances of recovery are better if the diagnosis is made in the early stages. According to the NCITrusted Source, around 30 percent of all people with stomach cancer survive at least five years after being diagnosed.

The majority of these survivors have a localized diagnosis. This means that the stomach was the original source of cancer. When the origin is unknown, it can be difficult to diagnose and stage the cancer. This makes the cancer harder to treat.

It’s also more difficult to treat stomach cancer once it reaches the later stages. If your cancer is more advanced, you may want to consider participating in a clinical trial.

Clinical trials help determine whether a new medical procedure, device, or other treatment is effective for treating certain diseases and conditions. You can see if there are any clinical trials of treatments for stomach cancer on the NCI websiteTrusted Source.

The website also has resources trusted Source to help you and your loved ones cope with a stomach cancer diagnosis and its subsequent treatment.

Source Credit: https://www.healthline.com/health/gastric-cancer#diagnosis

Does Obesity Cause Thyroid Problems In An Individual

Introduction

It has been assumed for a long time that thyroid disorders lead to weight gain. However, it is obesity that leads to thyroid dysfunction. Relation between obesity and thyroid has been described in the present article

Statistics

According to the World Health Organization, the number of individuals with obesity has doubled since 1980. Approximately 1.4 billion adults are overweight, and over 500 million of them are obese. Thyroid dysfunction is found in 33% of obese individuals.

Etiopathogenesis

Numerous theories have been proposed linking the association between obesity and thyroid disorders

1. One theory suggests an increased deiodinase activity in obese individuals leading to a high conversion rate of thyroid hormones (T4 to T3). This is a defense mechanism in obese subjects to counteract fat accumulation by increasing energy expenditure.

2. Another probable mechanism is the compensatory increase in the secretion of thyroid hormones to overcome decreased tissue response to circulating thyroid hormones in adipocytes of obese subjects.

3. Increased levels of Leptin found in obese subjects are another potential cause

Clinical features

Obesity doesn’t have any specific signs and symptoms. Associated problems observed in obese individuals include difficulty breathing, increased sweating, tiredness, and inability to manage physical activities. There is growing evidence on the relationship between hypothyroidism and weight gain. Hypothyroidism along with obesity causes a cold feeling.

Complications

An individual with obesity and thyroid gland dysfunction has an increased risk of thyroid cancer.

Diagnosis

Body mass index (BMI) is frequently used to determine if an individual is overweight/obese. An adult with BMI around 25-29.9 is considered to be overweight, while a BMI of 30 or high is considered to be obese.

Other methods of fat estimation and its distribution include

• Skinfold thickness
• Waist circumference
• Analyzing the waist to hip ratios

Hypothyroidism

Diagnosis of hypothyroidism is based on the clinical features and blood tests measuring the level of thyroid hormones. A low level of thyroxine and high levels of thyroid-stimulating hormone indicates hypothyroidism.

Treatment of Obese Patients with thyroid dysfunction

The adequate treatment of obese patients with hypothyroidism depends on the adequate administration of thyroid hormone. The thyroid hormone commonly employed in these individuals is levothyroxine. Obese individuals usually need a higher dose of levothyroxine. These individuals should concomitantly aim for weight loss by

• Limiting processed foods
• Exercising regularly
• Intake of high fiber foods
• Limiting goitrogenic foods (kale, mushroom, broccoli)

Prevention

There are numerous factors that can lead to obesity. The major predisposing factors include excess dietary fat intake and a sedentary lifestyle. Additional factors that can predispose to obesity include chronic stress, menopause, and certain medications. Healthy eating, avoiding stress and increased physical activity can prevent obesity consequently the associated thyroid dysfunction

• Healthy eating (low fat, fiber dense foods)
• Avoiding stress (yoga)
• Physical activity (walking, cycling, swimming, jogging)

References

1. Sanyal D, Raychaudhuri M. Hypothyroidism and obesity: An intriguing link. Indian journal of endocrinology and metabolism. 2016 Jul;20(4):554.

2. Longhi S, Radetti G. Thyroid function and obesity. Journal of clinical research in pediatric endocrinology. 2013 Mar;5(Suppl 1):40.

• Source Credit: https://www.medeaz.com/blog/does-obesity-cause-thyroid-problems-in-an-individual/

An omega-3 that’s poison for tumors

Date: June 11, 2021

Source: Université catholique de Louvain

Summary:

3D tumors that disintegrate within a few days thanks to the action of a well-known omega-3 (DHA, found mainly in fish) — this is a promising discovery. Hungry for fatty acids, tumor cells in acidosis gorge themselves on DHA but are unable to store it correctly and literally poison themselves. The result? They die.

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So-called “good fatty acids” are essential for human health and much sought after by those who try to eat healthily. Among the Omega-3 fatty acids, DHA or docosahexaenoic acid is crucial to brain function, vision and the regulation of inflammatory phenomena.

In addition to these virtues, DHA is also associated with a reduction in the incidence of cancer. How it works is the subject of a major discovery by a multidisciplinary team of University of Louvain (UCLouvain) researchers, who have just elucidated the biochemical mechanism that allows DHA and other related fatty acids to slow the development of tumours. This is a major advance that has recently been published in the journal Cell Metabolism.

Key to the discovery: interdisciplinarity

In 2016, Olivier Feron’s UCLouvain team, which specialises in oncology, discovered that cells in an acidic microenvironment (acidosis) within tumours replace glucose with lipids as an energy source in order to multiply. In collaboration with UCLouvain’s Cyril Corbet, Prof. Feron demonstrated in 2020 that these same cells are the most aggressive and acquire the ability to leave the original tumour to generate metastases. Meanwhile, Yvan Larondelle, a professor in the UCLouvain Faculty of Bioengineering, whose team is developing improved dietary lipid sources, proposed to Prof. Feron that they combine their skills in a research project, led by PhD candidate Emeline Dierge, to evaluate the behaviour of tumour cells in the presence of different fatty acids.

Thanks to the support of the Fondation Louvain, the Belgian Cancer Foundation and the Télévie telethon, the team quickly identified that these acidotic tumour cells responded in diametrically opposite ways depending on the fatty acid they were absorbing. Within a few weeks, the results were both impressive and surprising. “We soon found that certain fatty acids stimulated the tumour cells while others killed them,” the researchers explained. DHA literally poisons them.

A fatal overload

The poison acts on tumour cells via a phenomenon called ferroptosis, a type of cell death linked to the peroxidation of certain fatty acids. The greater the amount of unsaturated fatty acids in the cell, the greater the risk of their oxidation. Normally, in the acidic compartment within tumours, cells store these fatty acids in lipid droplets, a kind of bundle in which fatty acids are protected from oxidation. But in the presence of a large amount of DHA, the tumour cell is overwhelmed and cannot store the DHA, which oxidises and leads to cell death. By using a lipid metabolism inhibitor that prevents the formation of lipid droplets, researchers were able to observe that this phenomenon is further amplified, which confirms the identified mechanism and opens the door to combined treatment possibilities.

For their study, UCLouvain researchers used a 3D tumour cell culture system, called spheroids. In the presence of DHA, spheroids first grow and then implode. The team also administered a DHA-enriched diet to mice with tumours. The result: tumour development was significantly slowed compared to that in mice on a conventional diet.

This UCLouvain study shows the value of DHA in fighting cancer. “For an adult,” the UCLouvain researchers stated, “it’s recommended to consume at least 250 mg of DHA per day. But studies show that our diet provides on average only 50 to 100 mg per day. This is well below the minimum recommended intake.”

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Story Source:

Materials provided by Université catholique de Louvain. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. Emeline Dierge, Elena Debock, Céline Guilbaud, Cyril Corbet, Eric Mignolet, Louise Mignard, Estelle Bastien, Chantal Dessy, Yvan Larondelle, Olivier Feron. Peroxidation of n-3 and n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids in the acidic tumor environment leads to ferroptosis-mediated anticancer effects. Cell Metabolism, 2021; DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2021.05.016

Source Credit: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210611110802.htm

Red meat intake, poor education linked to colorectal cancer

A new paper in JNCI Cancer Spectrum, published by Oxford University Press, indicates that several non-genetic factors—including greater red meat intake, lower educational attainment, and heavier alcohol use—are associated with an increase in colorectal cancer in people under 50.

In the United States, incidence rates of early-onset colorectal cancer have nearly doubled between 1992 and 2013 (from 8.6 to 13.1 per 100,000), with most of this increase due to early-onset cancers of the rectum. Approximately 1 in 10 diagnoses of colorectal cancer in this country occur in people under 50.

Researchers have observed the rise particularly among people born since the 1960s in studies from the United States, Canada, Australia, and Japan. During the same period there have been major changes in diets among younger generations across the developing world. Such changes include decreases in consumption of fruits, non-potato vegetables, and calcium-rich dairy sources. This is coupled with an increase in processed foods (e.g., meats, pizza, macaroni and cheese, etc.) and soft drinks. Average nutrient intakes of fiber, folate, and calcium among the U.S. population are also lower than recommended.

The increase in early onset colorectal cancer is concerning to researchers because these cancers often have worse outcomes than those diagnosed in older people. It has led to recommendations that colorectal cancer screening begin at younger ages.

Previous research has outlined potential risk factors for early-onset colorectal cancer including greater consumption of processed meat, reduced consumption of vegetables and citrus fruit, greater body mass index, sedentary lifestyles, greater alcohol use, smoking, reduced aspirin use, and diabetes. However, researchers have yet to perform a comprehensive, large-scale evaluation that compares the magnitude of these risks with those for late-onset colorectal cancer and assesses whether the risks for early-onset colorectal cancer correlate with specific types of colorectal cancer.

Using data pooled from 13 population-based studies, researchers here studied 3,767 colorectal cancer cases and 4,049 controls in people under 50 and 23,437 colorectal cancer cases and 35,311 controls in people 50 or above years.

Early-onset colorectal cancer was associated with not regularly using aspirins, greater red meat intake, lower educational attainment, heavier alcohol use, and (interestingly enough) also alcohol abstinence. Researchers also found that lower total fiber intake was linked more strongly to rectal than colon cancer.

Several other colorectal cancer risk factors trended toward an association with early-onset colorectal cancer, including history of diabetes and lower folate, dietary fiber, and calcium intake. However, neither BMI nor smoking were risk factors in the early-onset group, in contrast to the late-onset group.

According to Richard Hayes, the senior investigator for this research: “this first large-scale study of non-genetic risk factors for early-onset colorectal cancer is providing the initial basis for targeted identification of those most at risk, which is imperative in mitigating the rising burden of this disease.”

Source Credit: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-05-red-meat-intake-poor-linked.html

INFOGRAPHIC: Durban Bariatric Surgery