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Category: cancer

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New research finds much lower rates of endometrial cancer in women eating a Mediterranean diet. This means: fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, seeds, nuts, fish, olive oil, little meat or dairy products, and moderate alcohol.

They use the term "womb cancer" in the article, but the medical term is endometrial cancer (or can be called uterine cancer). Other risk factors for endometrial cancer are being older (post-menopausal), being overweight, and taking estrogen-alone hormone replacement therapy.

From Science Daily: Eating a Mediterranean diet could cut womb cancer risk

Women who eat a Mediterranean diet could cut their risk of womb cancer (endometrial cancer) by more than half (57 per cent), according to a study published today (Wednesday) in the British Journal of Cancer. The Italian researchers looked at the diets of over 5,000 Italian women to see how closely they stuck to a Mediterranean diet and whether they went on to develop womb cancer.

The team broke the Mediterranean diet down into nine different components and measured how closely women stuck to them. The diet includes eating lots of vegetables, fruits and nuts, pulses (legumes), cereals and potatoes, fish, monounsaturated fats but little meat, milk and other dairy products and moderate alcohol intake.

Researchers found that women who adhered to the Mediterranean diet most closely by eating between seven and nine of the beneficial food groups lowered their risk of womb cancer by more than half (57 per cent).Those who stuck to six elements of the diet's components reduced their risk of womb cancer by 46 per cent and those who stuck to five reduced their risk by a third (34 per cent). But those women whose diet included fewer than five of the components did not lower their risk of womb cancer significantly.

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More studies need to be done, but the possibility of simply taking 500 mg twice a day of nicotinamide (a vitamin B3 derivative) to reduce the incidence of basal and squamous cell carcinoma is exciting.

Nonmelanoma skin cancer is the most common cancer in the world.

From Medical Xpress: Study: Vitamin B3 may help prevent certain skin cancers

For the first time, a large study suggests that a vitamin might modestly lower the risk of the most common types of skin cancer in people with a history of these relatively harmless yet troublesome growths.

In a study in Australia, people who took a specific type of vitamin B3 for a year had a 23 percent lower rate of new skin cancers compared to others who took dummy pills. In absolute terms, it meant that vitamin takers developed fewer than two of these cancers on average versus roughly 2.5 cancers for the others.The study did not involve melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer. Instead, it aimed at more common forms—basal and squamous cell cancers. He and other doctors with the oncology group said the vitamin, called nicotinamide, could offer a cheap, easy way to lower risk.

The study involved 386 people who had at least two skin cancers in the previous five years. They took either 500 milligrams of the vitamin or dummy pills twice a day for a year. Neither they nor their doctors knew who got what until the study ended.

Besides reducing the rate of skin cancers, vitamin use also seemed to cut the rate of precancers—scaly patches of skin called actinic keratoses—by 11 percent after three months of use and 20 percent after nine months. Participants were tracked for six months after they stopped taking their pills, and the rate of new skin cancers was similar in both groups. "The benefit wears off fairly quickly," Damian said. "You need to continue taking the tablets for them to continue to be effective."

Nicotinamide is thought to help repair DNA in cells damaged by sun exposure. It is not the same as nicotine, the addictive stuff in tobacco. It's also not the same as niacin and some other forms of B3, which can cause flushing, headaches and blood pressure problems. Those problems were not seen with nicotinamide in the study. Nicotinamide is sold over the counter, is easy to take, and "there are essentially no side effects," Schilsky said.

 Credit: WebMD, Healthwise, Inc.

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This research was done in a laboratory using cells, but the results support some other research finding that eating cruciferous vegetables frequently may help prevent cancer. They found that compound levels that were anti-cancer (killed off cancer cells) in this study could be achieved through diet alone. Cruciferous vegetables are vegetables of the family Brassicaceae (also called Cruciferae) such as cauliflower, cabbage, garden cress, bok choy, broccoli, brussels sprouts, kale, and similar green leaf vegetables. From Science Daily:

Plant-derived compound targets cancer stem cells

A compound and an enzyme that occur naturally in cruciferous vegetables--cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli and Brussels sprouts--may help prevent recurrence and spread of some cancers, according to researchers. When they treated human cervical cancer stem cells with phenethyl isothiocyanate (PEITC) in a Petri dish, about 75 percent died within 24 hours using a 20-micromolar concentration of the compound.

The precursor compound and enzyme in cruciferous vegetables combine during the chewing process to produce PEITC within the body, Dey explained. Though PEITC is a good candidate to develop as a dietary supplement, studies have also shown that sufficient cancer-preventing levels of PEITC can be achieved through diet alone.

When cancer is treated with chemotherapy or radiation, the tumor disappears but the cancer stem cells live on. "These cells are frequently resistant to conventional therapies," Dey said. Though cancer stem cells make up less than 5 percent of a tumor, they can regenerate the original tumor and migrate through the blood vessels spreading cancer to secondary locations."These tiny cells are very difficult to detect in a tumor," Dey pointed, adding that for a long time scientists did not even know they existed. 

Based on information from scientific literature, the concentrations of PEITC that Dey and her team typically use in their research -- 5 to 15 micromolars -- may be achieved through diets rich in certain types of cruciferous vegetables, particularly land cress and watercress.

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A recent study confirms all my recent posts on the importance of fiber, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, seeds, nuts, and legumes for beneficial gut bacteria health (have to feed the them!). This study found dramatic changes in the colon (specifically in the colonic mucosa) from dietary changes in as little as 2 weeks.

In the study, for 2 weeks the Americans ate the typical low-fat, high fiber diet of South Africa which included foods such as hi-maize corn fritters, beans, salmon croquettes, spinach, red pepper and onions, homemade tater tots, mango slices,okra, tomatoes, corn muffins, black-eyed peas, catfish nuggets, navy bean soup, banana, lentils, rice, fish taco (tilapia), and pineapple. Meanwhile, people in South Africa ate an “American” high-fat, low-fiber diet. Foods included beef sausage links and pancakes for breakfast; hamburger and French fries for lunch; and meatloaf and rice for dinner. Plus all sorts of American favorites such as macaroni and cheese, steak, beef hot dog and beans.

The African style low fat and high fiber diet contained about 55 grams of fiber per day, and the American diet (low fiber and high fat ) had about 14 grams of fiber per day (which is typical of a Western diet). Bottom line: fiber feeds beneficial microbes in the gut, which results in beneficial changes in the gut (in the mucosa of the colon). From Science Daily:

Diet swap has dramatic effects on colon cancer risk for Americans and Africans

Scientists have found dramatic effects on risk factors for colon cancer when American and African volunteers swapped diets for just two weeks. Western diets, high in protein and fat but low in fibre, are thought to raise colon cancer risk compared with African diets high in fibre and low in fat and protein.The new study, published in Nature Communications today, confirms that a high fibre diet can substantially reduce risk, and shows that bacteria living in the gut play an important role in this effect.

Colon cancer is the fourth commonest cause of death from cancer worldwide, accounting for over 600,000 deaths per year. Colon cancer rates are much higher in the western world than in Africa or the Far East, yet in the United States, African Americans shoulder the greatest burden of the disease.

To investigate the possible roles of diet and gut bacteria, an international team including scientists from the University of Pittsburgh and Imperial College London carried out a study with a group of 20 African American volunteers and another group of 20 participants from rural South Africa. The two groups swapped diets under tightly controlled conditions for two weeks.... At the start, when the groups had been eating their normal diets, almost half of the American subjects had polyps -- abnormal growths in the bowel lining that may be harmless but can progress to cancer. None of the Africans had these abnormalities.

After two weeks on the African diet, the American group had significantly less inflammation in the colon and reduced biomarkers of cancer risk. In the African group, measurements indicating cancer risk dramatically increased after two weeks on the western diet.

"The findings suggest that people can substantially lower their risk of colon cancer by eating more fibre. This is not new in itself but what is really surprising is how quickly and dramatically the risk markers can switch in both groups following diet change. These findings also raise serious concerns that the progressive westernization of African communities may lead to the emergence of colon cancer as a major health issue."

Professor Stephen O'Keefe at the University of Pittsburgh, who directed the study, said: "Studies on Japanese migrants to Hawaii have shown that it takes one generation of westernization to change their low incidence of colon cancer to the high rates observed in native Hawaiians. Our study suggests that westernization of the diet induces changes in biomarkers of colon cancer risk in the colonic mucosa within two weeks. Perhaps even more importantly, a change in diet from a westernized composition to a 'traditional African' high fiber low fat diet reduced these biomarkers of cancer risk within two weeks, indicating that it is likely never too late to change your diet to change your risk of colon cancer."

The study found that a major reason for the changes in cancer risk was the way in which the bacteria in the gut -- known as the microbiome -- altered their metabolism to adapt to the new diet. In the American group, the researchers found that the African diet led to an increase in the production of butyrate, a byproduct of fibre metabolism that has important anti-cancer effects.

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More good news for coffee drinkers! A number of studies have found that coffee drinking is protective against breast cancer (coffee inhibits the growth of tumors), but now research finds it is also protective against breast cancer recurring. The beneficial effects are seen with 2 or more cups of coffee per day. Other studies have found that lifestyle changes (such as weight loss, healthy eating, and exercise) are linked to lower rates of recurrence, but apparently coffee drinking can also be added to the list. This research found that not only is coffee drinking linked to smaller tumors in the first place, but it is also linked to lower rates of recurrence in women also taking tamoxifen. The researchers said: "In summary, this study shows inhibitory effects by caffeine and caffeic acid on breast cancer cell growth." Both caffeine and caffeic acid are present in coffee. From Science Daily:

Coffee protects against breast cancer recurrence, detailed findings confirm

A number of research studies have shown that coffee helps to protect against breast cancer. A new study led by Lund University, has confirmed that coffee inhibits the growth of tumors and reduces the risk of recurrence in women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer and treated with the drug tamoxifen.

The study, which is a follow-up of the results the researchers obtained two years ago, was carried out at Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, in collaboration with researchers in the UK. "Now, unlike in the previous study, we have combined information about the patients' lifestyle and clinical data from 1090 breast cancer patients with studies on breast cancer cells. The study shows that among the over 500 women treated with tamoxifen, those who had drunk at least two cups of coffee a day had only half the risk of recurrence of those who drank less coffee or none at all," explain researchers Ann Rosendahl and Helena Jernström, who obtained the results in collaboration with Jeff Holly and his research team at University of Bristol.

"The study also shows that those who drank at least two cups of coffee a day had smaller tumors and a lower proportion of hormone-dependent tumors. We saw that this was already the case at the time of diagnosis."

In the cell study, the researchers looked more closely at two substances that usually occur in the coffee drunk in Sweden -- caffeine and caffeic acid.

"The breast cancer cells reacted to these substances, especially caffeine, with reduced cell division and increased cell death, especially in combination with tamoxifen. This shows that these substances have an effect on the breast cancer cells and turn off signalling pathways that the cancer cells require to grow.

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More details are needed about this specific research, but this has been said before: foods are good, but supplements can be problematic. Here extra vitamins and minerals are linked to higher rates of cancer. From Science Daily:

Excessive use of dietary supplements linked to increase cancer risk

While dietary supplements may be advertised to promote health, a forum at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2015 by University of Colorado Cancer Center investigator Tim Byers, MD, MPH, describes research showing that over-the-counter supplements may actually increase cancer risk if taken in excess of the recommended dietary amount.

"We are not sure why this is happening at the molecular level but evidence shows that people who take more dietary supplements than needed tend to have a higher risk of developing cancer," explains Byers, associate director for cancer prevention and control at the CU Cancer Center.

The line of research started 20 years ago with the observation that people who ate more fruits and vegetables tended to have less cancer. Researchers including Byers wanted to see if taking extra vitamins and minerals would reduce cancer risk even further. "When we first tested dietary supplements in animal models we found that the results were promising," says Byers. "Eventually we were able to move on to the human populations. We studied thousands of patients for ten years who were taking dietary supplements and placebos."

The results were not what they expected."We found that the supplements were actually not beneficial for their health. In fact, some people actually got more cancer while on the vitamins," explains Byers. One trial exploring the effects of beta-keratin supplements showed that taking more than the recommended dosage increased the risk for developing both lung cancer and heart disease by 20 percent. Folic acid, which was thought to help reduce the number of polyps in a colon, actually increased the number in another trial.

"This is not to say that people need to be afraid of taking vitamins and minerals," says Byers. "If taken at the correct dosage, multivitamins can be good for you. But there is no substitute for good, nutritional food." Byers says that people can get the daily recommended doses of vitamins and minerals in their diets by eating healthy meals and that many adults who take vitamin supplements may not need them."

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There have been a number of studies over the years finding environmental links to testicular cancer (such as some pesticides, smoking, and endocrine disruptors). Now another one - muscle-building supplements with creatine and androstenedione . From Science Daily:

Testicular cancer link found for muscle-building supplements

Men who reported taking muscle-building supplements, such as pills and powders with creatine or androstenedione, reported a significantly higher likelihood of having developed testicular cancer than men who did not use such supplements, according to a new study in theBritish Journal of Cancer. Moreover, said study senior author Tongzhang Zheng, the associated testicular germ cell cancer risk was especially high among men who started using supplements before age 25, those who used multiple supplements and those who used them for years.

"The observed relationship was strong," said Zheng, who led the study at Yale University before joining the Brown University School of Public Health as a professor of epidemiology. "If you used at earlier age, you had a higher risk. If you used them longer, you had a higher risk. If you used multiple types, you had a higher risk." Testicular cancer incidence rose to 5.9 cases per 100,000 men in 2011, from 3.7 cases in 100,000 in 1975, Zheng said. Researchers aren't sure why. The work was inspired by mounting evidence that that at least some supplement ingredients may damage the testes.

To conduct the study, Zheng's research team conducted detailed interviews of nearly 900 men from Massachusetts and Connecticut -- 356 of whom had been diagnosed with testicular germ cell cancer, and 513 who had not. In the interviews, researchers asked the men not only about their supplement use but also about a wide variety of other possible factors such as smoking, drinking, exercise habits, family history of testicular cancer, and prior injury to their testes or groin....The researchers defined "use" as consuming one or more supplements at least once a week for four consecutive weeks or more.

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Discussions of the benefits of dietary fiber seem to be everywhere this week.

From Forbes: Eat Whole Grains For A Long Life, New Study Says

Eating lots of whole grains – especially those high in cereal fiber – may help people live longer, according to new research. The study out in BMC Medicine this week suggests that eating hefty amounts of cereal fibers can help reduce the risk of death from a number of causes, including cancer and diabetes, by almost 20%. Previous research has certainly linked whole grains to the reduction of certain chronic diseases and to reduced mortality, but this one is the largest of its kind to show a reduction in death from a number of different causes. So if you want to live longer, grab a bowl of cereal. The less refined, the better.

Whole grains are grains in their most unadulterated form, still containing the endosperm, bran, and germ – most of the plant’s nutritional value lies in the bran and germ. When grains go through milling to become processed or refined, they’re typically stripped of the bran and germ parts, along with a number of B vitamins, fiber, and iron.

In the new study, the Harvard Medical School team tracked over 367,000 healthy people who were taking part in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study, for an average of 14 years. ..It turned out that people who ate more whole grains – 1.2 ounces of per day, on average – had a 17% reduced risk of death, compared to those who ate much less, around 0.13 ounces per day. And when it came to the cereal fiber itself, people who ate the most had a 19% reduced risk of death from any cause, compared to those who ate the least.

The researchers even broke it down by disease: People who ate the highest amounts of whole grains had a 48% reduced risk of death from diabetes, and an 11% reduced risk of dying from respiratory diseases. And people who ate the most cereal fiber had 15% and 34% reduced risk of death from cancer and diabetes, respectively. 

The study cannot of course determine causation, since it’s just observational...Still, a number of studies have pointed to a strong connection between whole grains and improved health and longevity in recent years. It may be the anti-inflammatory properties of fiber per se – and its effect of reducing c-reactive protein (CRP) and tumor necrosis factor – that are responsible for their health benefits. If you’re going to up your grain intake, make sure to choose whole ones, like steel cut oats, quinoa, or even whole grain bread, over refined ones like cereal flakes or white bread. 

From Scientific American: Fiber-Famished Gut Microbes Linked to Poor Health

Your gut is the site of constant turf wars. Hundreds of bacterial species—along with fungi, archaea and viruses—do battle daily, competing for resources. Some companies advocate for consuming more probiotics, live beneficial bacteria, to improve microbial communities in our gut, but more and more research supports the idea that the most powerful approach might be to better feed the good bacteria we already harbor. Their meal of choice? Fiber.  

Fiber has long been linked to better health, but new research shows how the gut microbiota might play a role in this pattern. One investigation discovered that adding more fiber to the diet can trigger a shift from a microbial profile linked to obesity to one correlated with a leaner physique. Another recent study shows that when microbes are starved of fiber, they can start to feed on the protective mucus lining of the gut, possibly triggering inflammation and disease.

"Diet is one of the most powerful tools we have for changing the microbiota," Justin Sonnenburg, a biologist at Stanford University, said earlier this month at a Keystone Symposia conference on the gut microbiome. "Dietary fiber and diversity of the microbiota complement each other for better health outcomes." In particular, beneficial microbes feast on fermentable fibers—which can come from various vegetables, whole grains and other foods—that resist digestion by human-made enzymes as they travel down the digestive tract. These fibers arrive in the large intestine relatively intact, ready to be devoured by our microbial multitudes. Microbes can extract the fiber's extra energy, nutrients, vitamins and other compounds for us. Short-chain fatty acids obtained from fiber are of particular interest, as they have been linked to improved immune function, decreased inflammation and protection against obesity.

Today's Western diet, however, is exceedingly fiber-poor by historical standards. It contains roughly 15 grams of fiber daily, Sonnenburg noted. For most of our early history as hunter-gatherers, we were likely eating close to 10 times that amount of fiber each day. "Imagine the effect that has on our microbiota over the course of our evolution," he said.

Not all helpful fiber, however, needs to come from the roots and roughage for which our ancestors foraged, new research suggests. Kelly Swanson, a professor of comparative nutrition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and his team found that simply adding a fiber-enriched snack bar to subjects' daily diets could swing microbial profiles in a matter of weeks... The findings were published in the January issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

As gut microbes are starved of fermentable fiber, some do die off. Others, however, are able to switch to another food source in the gut: the mucus lining that helps keep the gut wall intact and free from infection. In a recent study presented at the Keystone meeting, Eric Martens of the University of Michigan Medical School, postdoctoral researcher Mahesh Desai and their colleagues found that this fuel switch had striking consequences in rodents. A group of mice fed a high-fiber diet had healthy gut lining, but for mice on a fiber-free diet, "the mucus layer becomes dramatically diminished," he explained at the meeting. This shift might sometimes have severe health consequences. Research by a Swedish team, published last year in the journal Gut, showed a link between bacteria penetrating the mucus layer and ulcerative colitis, a painful chronic bowel disease.

A third group of mice received high-fiber chow and fiber-free chow on alternating days—"like what we would do if we were being bad and eating McDonald's one day and eating our whole grains the next," Martens joked. Even the part-time high-fiber diet was not enough to keep guts healthy: these mice had a mucus layer about half the thickness of mice on the consistently high-fiber diet. If we can extend these results to humans, he said, it "tells us that even eating your whole fiber foods every other day is still not enough to protect you. You need to eat a high-fiber diet every day to keep a healthy gut." Along the same lines, Swanson's group found that the gut microbiomes of his adult subjects reverted back to initial profiles as soon as the high-fiber bars were discontinued.

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In the past year I keep coming across one special gut microbe: Faecalibacterium prausnitzii. This bacteria is considered beneficial and is one of the most prevalent intestinal bacterial species in healthy adults. The reduction of this bacteria in the gut (as measured by analyzing bacteria in fecal samples) is seen in several diseases, including Intestinal Bowel Disease (IBD). This bacteria has also been found to be anti-inflammatory. In other words, you really, really want a healthy population in your gut.

But now the question is: how does the bacteria get there? And how can you increase it if you have a low population in your gut? It certainly isn't found in any probiotic supplement that I know of.  Part of the answer seems to be eating foods with fiber, lots of it, to feed the good microbes. Eat fruits, vegetables, whole grains, seeds, legumes, and nuts.

The following lengthy article discusses the importance of keystone species (F. prausnitzii is one). From Scientific American:

Among Trillions of Microbes in the Gut, a Few Are Special

In the mid-2000s Harry Sokol, a gastroenterologist at Saint Antoine Hospital in Paris, was surprised by what he found when he ran some laboratory tests on tissue samples from his patients with Crohn's disease, a chronic inflammatory disorder of the gut.. But when Sokol did a comparative DNA analysis of diseased sections of intestine surgically removed from the patients, he observed a relative depletion of just one common bacterium, Faecalibacterium prausnitzii. Rather than “bad” microbes prompting disease, he wondered, could a single “good” microbe prevent disease?

Sokol transferred the bacterium to mice and found it protected them against experimentally induced intestinal inflammation. And when he subsequently mixed F. prausnitzii with human immune cells in a test tube, he noted a strong anti-inflammatory response. Sokol seemed to have identified a powerfully anti-inflammatory member of the human microbiota.

Each of us harbors a teeming ecosystem of microbes that outnumbers the total number of cells in the human body by a factor of 10 to one and whose collective genome is at least 150 times larger than our own... The microbiome varies dramatically from one individual to the next and can change quickly over time in a single individual. The great majority of the microbes live in the gut, particularly the large intestine, which serves as an anaerobic digestion chamber. 

Independent researchers around the world have identified a select group of microbes that seem important for gut health and a balanced immune system. They belong to several clustered branches of the clostridial group. Dubbed “clostridial clusters,” these microbes are distantly related to Clostridium difficile, a scourge of hospitals and an all too frequent cause of death by diarrhea. But where C. difficile prompts endless inflammation, bleeding and potentially catastrophic loss of fluids, the clostridial clusters do just the opposite—they keep the gut barrier tight and healthy, and they soothe the immune system. Scientists are now exploring whether these microbes can be used to treat a bevy of the autoimmune, allergic and inflammatory disorders that have increased in recent decades, including Crohn's and maybe even obesity.

F. prausnitzii was one of the first clostridial microbes to be identified. In Sokol's patients those with higher counts of F. prausnitzii consistently fared best six months after surgery. After he published his initial findings in 2008, scientists in India and Japan also found F. prausnitzii to be depleted in patients with inflammatory bowel disease... This suggested that whereas different genetic vulnerabilities might underlie the disorder, the path to disease was similar: a loss of anti-inflammatory microbes from the gut. And although Sokol suspects that other good bacteria besides F. prausnitzii exist, this similarity hinted at a potential one-size-fits-all remedy for Crohn's and possibly other inflammatory disorders: restoration of peacekeeping microbes.

One of the questions central to microbiome research is why people in modern society, who are relatively free of infectious diseases, a major cause of inflammation, are so prone to inflammatory, autoimmune and allergic diseases. Many now suspect that society-wide shifts in our microbial communities have contributed to our seemingly hyperreactive immune systems. Drivers of these changes might include antibiotics; sanitary practices that are aimed at limiting infectious disease but that also hinder the transmission of symbiotic microbes; and, of course, our high-sugar, high-fat modern diet. Our microbes eat what we eat, after all. Moreover, our particular surroundings may seed us with unique microbes, “localizing” our microbiota.

A number of studies have found a small but significant correlation between the early-life use of antibiotics and the later development of inflammatory disorders, including asthma, inflammatory bowel disease and, more recently, colorectal cancer and childhood obesity. One explanation for this association might be that sickly people take more antibiotics. Antibiotics are not the cause, in other words, but the result of preexisting ill health. Honda's studies suggest another explanation: antibiotics may deplete the very bacteria that favorably calibrate the immune system, leaving it prone to overreaction. 

A number of studies over the years have linked having fewer sanitary amenities in childhood with a lower risk of inflammatory bowel disease in adulthood. And a 2014 study from Aarhus University in Denmark found that among northern Europeans, growing up on a farm with livestock—another microbially enriched environment—halved the risk of being stricken with inflammatory bowel disease in adulthood.

These patterns suggest that perhaps by seeding the gut microbiota early in life or by direct modification of the immune system the environment can affect our risk of inflammatory bowel disease despite the genes we carry. And they raise the question of what proactive steps those of us who do not live on farms can take to increase our chances of harboring a healthy mix of microbes.

One of the more surprising discoveries in recent years is how much the gut microbiota of people living in North America differs from those of people living in rural conditions in Africa and South America. The microbial mix in North America is geared to digesting protein, simple sugars and fats, whereas the mix in rural African and Amazonian environments is far more diverse and geared to fermenting plant fiber. Some think that our hunter-gatherer ancestors harbored even greater microbial diversity in their guts.

What troubles Sonnenburg about this shift is that the bacteria that seem most anti-inflammatory—including the clostridial clusters—often specialize in fermenting soluble fiber...Some hunter-gatherers consumed up to 10 times as much soluble fiber as modern populations, and their bodies likely were flooded with far more fermentation by-products. Our fiber-poor modern diet may have weakened that signal, producing a state of “simmering hyperreactivity,” Sonnenburg says, and predisposing us to the “plagues” of civilization. He calls this problem “starving our microbial self.” We may not be adequately feeding some of the most important members of our microbiota.

Mouse experiments support the idea. Diets high in certain fats and sugars deplete anti-inflammatory bacteria, thin the mucous layer and foster systemic inflammation. ...In rodents, adding fermentable fiber to a diet otherwise high in fat keeps the “good” microbes happy, the mucous layer healthy and the gut barrier intact, and it prevents systemic inflammation. Taken together, these studies suggest that it is not only what is in your food that matters for your health but also what is missing.

The human studies are even more intriguing... Scientists at Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium recently showed that adding inulin, a fermentable fiber, to the diet of obese women increased counts of F. prausnitzii and other clostridial bacteria and reduced that dangerous systemic inflammation...Those without the bacteria did not benefit, which suggests that once species disappear from the “microbial organ,” the associated functions might also vanish. These individuals might not require ecosystem engineering so much as an ecosystem restoration.

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There are a number of very good health reasons to cut back or totally eliminate soda from your diet. The following articles and earlier posts discuss some of the ways both diet and regular soda are linked to health problems. Note in the second article that there's currently no federal limit for a byproduct of some types of caramel color called 4-MEI (a carcinogen) in food or beverages. California's Proposition 65 Law (aimed at reducing consumers' exposure to toxic chemicals) requires a  health-warning label on sodas with too high levels of 4-MEI resulted in manufacturers producing soda with lower levels of that chemical in the state. But sodas out of California may have higher levels! From Science Daily:

Diet soda linked to increases in belly fat in older adults

Increasing diet soda intake is directly linked to greater abdominal obesity in adults 65 years of age and older. Findings raise concerns about the safety of chronic diet soda consumption, which may increase belly fat and contribute to greater risk of metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular diseases. Metabolic syndrome--a combination of risk factors that may lead to high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, and stroke--is one of the results of the obesity epidemic.

The San Antonio Longitudinal Study of Aging (SALSA) enrolled 749 Mexican- and European-Americans who were aged 65 and older at the start of the study (1992-96). Diet soda intake, waist circumference, height, and weight were measured at study onset, and at three follow-ups in 2000-01, 2001-03, and 2003-04, for a total of 9.4 follow-up years. At the first follow-up there were 474 (79.1%) surviving participants; there were 413 (73.4%) at the second follow-up and 375 (71.0%) at the third follow-up.

Findings indicate that the increase in waist circumference among diet soda drinkers, per follow-up interval, was almost triple that among non-users: 2.11 cm versus 0.77 cm, respectively. After adjustment for multiple potential confounders, interval waist circumference increases were 0.77 cm for non-users, 1.76 cm for occasional users, and 3.04 cm for daily users. This translates to waist circumference increases of 0.80 inches for non-users, 1.83 inches for occasional users, and 3.16 inches for daily users over the total 9.4-year SALSA follow-up period.

From Medical Xpress:

Popular soda ingredient poses cancer risk to consumers, new study suggests

Public health researchers have analyzed soda consumption data in order to characterize people's exposure to a potentially carcinogenic byproduct of some types of caramel color. Caramel color is a common ingredient in colas and other dark soft drinks. The results show that between 44 and 58 percent of people over the age of six typically have at least one can of soda per day, possibly more, potentially exposing them to 4-methylimidazole (4-MEI), a possible human carcinogen formed during the manufacture of some kinds of caramel color.

"Soft drink consumers are being exposed to an avoidable and unnecessary cancer risk from an ingredient that is being added to these beverages simply for aesthetic purposes," says Keeve Nachman, PhD, senior author of the study and director of the Food Production and Public Health Program at the CLF and an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. ."

In 2013 and early 2014, Consumer Reports partnered with the CLF to analyze 4-MEI concentrations of 110 soft drink samples purchased from retail stores in California and the New York metropolitan area...While the 2014 study of the 110 samples of soda brands was not large enough to recommend one brand over another or draw conclusions about specific brands, results indicated that levels of 4-MEI could vary substantially across samples, even for the same type of beverage. 

Researchers also found sharply contrasting levels of 4-MEI in some soft drinks purchased in the New York metropolitan area, versus California. "Our study also found that some of the soft drink products sold in California that we sampled had lower levels of 4-MEI than the samples we looked at of the same beverages sold outside the state, particularly in our earlier rounds of testing. It appears that regulations such as California's Proposition 65 may be effective at reducing exposure to 4-MEI from soft drinks, and that beverages can be manufactured in ways that produce less 4-MEI," suggests Nachman. ."

From Medical Daily: Bye-Bye Sugary Drinks: This Is What Happens To Your Body When You Stop Drinking Soda