Do people change their eating habits after a diagnosis of cancer? A systematic review.  — Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics Notes

The JHND Editor’s Pick for February 2022 is a systematic review  by Amal Aldossari, Jana Sremanakova, Anne Marie Sowerbutts, Debra Jones, Mark Hann and Sorrel Burden. This is a very timely review of the evidence as the numbers of people who are now living with and beyond cancer is at a historic high. Whilst 1 in 2 adults […]

Do people change their eating habits after a diagnosis of cancer? A systematic review.  — Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics Notes

Exposome! (I Learned a New Word Today)

In an extensive review, the team found that the early life exposome, which encompasses one’s diet, lifestyle, weight, environmental exposures, and microbiome, has changed substantially in the last several decades. Thus, they hypothesized that factors like the westernized diet and lifestyle may be contributing to the early-onset cancer epidemic…

Possible risk factors for early-onset cancer included alcohol consumption, sleep deprivation, smoking, obesity, and eating foods. Surprisingly, researchers found that while adult sleep duration hasn’t drastically changed over the several decades, children are getting far less sleep today than they were decades ago. Risk factors such as highly-processed foods, sugary beverages, obesity, type 2 diabetes, sedentary lifestyle, and alcohol consumption have all significantly increased since the 1950s, which researchers speculate has accompanied altered microbiome.

Cancers in adults under 50 on the rise globally – https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/09/220906161454.htm. Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “Cancers in adults under 50 on the rise globally: Researchers identify risks factors and trends behind an increasing incidence of early-onset cancers around the world.” ScienceDaily. (accessed September 7, 2022).

I’ve been cooking a lot this week and decided to give myself a break tonight. Grab a burger maybe some pizza.

Then I read this article.

Maybe I will cook tonight.

Microbial Link Between Western-style Diet and Colon Cancer Risk

Investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital with collaborators looked at data from more than 134,000 participants from two U.S.-wide prospective cohort studies. The team analyzed dietary patterns as well as DNA from Escherichia coli strains found in more than 1,000 colorectal tumors. The team looked for bacterial strains carrying a distinct genetic island known as polyketide synthase (pks). Pks encodes an enzyme that has been shown to cause mutations in human cells. Overall, the team found that Western diet was associated with colorectal tumors containing high amounts of pks+ E. coli but not with tumors containing little to no amount of pks+ E. coli.

Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “Microbial link between Western-style diet and incidence of colorectal cancer uncovered.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 27 June 2022. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/06/220627124937.htm.

Merkel Cell Carcinoma (MCC)

Patients treated for Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) face a five-year recurrence rate of 40% — markedly higher than the recurrence rates for melanoma and other skin cancers, according to research published today in JAMA Dermatology.

University of Washington School of Medicine/UW Medicine. “Patients with rare skin cancer face 40% recurrence rate.” ScienceDaily. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220223111226.htm (accessed February 24, 2022).

Diet-induced Alteration of Intestinal Stem Cell Function (in mice)

“The first thing we noticed was that the small intestine increases greatly in size on the high-calorie diet,” says study leader Anika Böttcher. “Together with Fabian Theis’ team of computational biologists at Helmholtz Munich, we then profiled 27,000 intestinal cells from control diet and high fat/high sugar diet-fed mice. Using new machine learning techniques, we thus found that intestinal stem cells divide and differentiate significantly faster in the mice on an unhealthy diet.” The researchers hypothesize that this is due to an upregulation of the relevant signaling pathways, which is associated with an acceleration of tumor growth in many cancers. “This could be an important link: Diet influences metabolic signaling, which leads to excessive growth of intestinal stem cells and ultimately to an increased risk of gastrointestinal cancer,” says Böttcher.

Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health. “New link between diet, intestinal stem cells and disease discovered.” ScienceDaily. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211119155604.htm (accessed November 27, 2021).

I wonder what Dr. Lustig would say about this study?

Dr. Robert Lustig – The Sugar Pandemic – 2012 Presentation at Yale University and Dr. Robert Lustig on Sugar.

Dead at Just 49 Years Old

Get tested.

Because the birth-cohort effect in cancer suggests that exposures early in life, during childhood or young adulthood, may be crucial, some have begun looking closely at changes to the microbiome. “We know that diet and lifestyle significantly shape our microbiome. They also significantly shape our immune system, which we need to fight off the development of cancer. And so we are hypothesizing that it’s a complex interplay among the microbiome, diet, lifestyle and your immune system,” Ng says.

The Colon Cancer Conundrum — https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03405-6

My cousin died from metastatic colon cancer at age 49.

Get tested.

Colonoscopy – Just Do It (an almost forgotten post)

I came across this post in my collection of unpublished drafts. I thought I posted this but obviously I didn’t. This article link was intended to be posted before Colorectal Cancer Rates Rising in Ages 50-54. Better late than never, I guess.

More than one quarter of colonoscopies carried out in Americans aged 30 to 49 years reveal some type of neoplasm, and slightly over 6% of these patients have advanced cancer, results of a nationally representative endoscopic registry show.

One Quarter of 30–49-Year-Olds Have Abnormal Colonoscopy Results – Medscape – Jun 07, 2021. — https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/952536?src=rss#vp_1
APL = Advanced Premalignant Lesions. CRC = Colorectal cancer.

Also see Study Finds Sharp Rise in Colon Cancer and Rectal Cancer Rates Among Young Adults and Diet and Colon Cancer Risk – CBS News.

Colorectal Cancer Rates Rising in Ages 50-54

During the period 1992–2018, there were a total of 101,609 cases of CRC among adults aged 45–59 years. Further analysis showed that the CRC incidence rates rose from 23.4 to 34.0 per 100,000 among people aged 45–49 years and from 46.4 to 63.8 per 100,000 among those aged 50–54 years. Conversely, incidence rates decreased among individuals aged 55–59 years, from 81.7 to 63.7 per 100,000 persons.

Colorectal Cancer Rates Rising in People Aged 50 to 54 Years – Medscape – Nov 11, 2021 – https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/962769?src=rss#vp_2

I am posting a link to this article as I enjoy the effects of 238 grams of Miralax mixed with a gallon of sports beverage and/or water. It certainly takes your mind off of not eating all day.

New Blood Test Improves Prostate Cancer Screening – the Stockholm3 test

On July 9 2021, results from the STHLM3MRI study were presented in The New England Journal of Medicine, indicating that over-diagnosis could be reduced by substituting traditional prostate biopsies with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and targeted biopsies. The new results, now published in The Lancet Oncology, show that the addition of the Stockholm3 test, which was developed by researchers at Karolinska Institutet, can be an important complement. It is a blood test that uses an algorithm to analyze a combination of protein markers, genetic markers and clinical data.

Karolinska Institutet. “New blood test improves prostate cancer screening.” ScienceDaily. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210813100313.htm (accessed August 14, 2021).

PPI’s and Gastric Cancer Risk

Objective The association between proton pump inhibitor (PPI) use and gastric cancer related to Helicobacter pylori eradication has not been fully investigated in geographical regions with high risk of gastric cancer. We aimed to evaluate the association between PPIs and gastric cancer in Korea.

Design This study analysed the original and common data model versions of the Korean National Health Insurance Service database from 2002 to 2013. We compared the incidence rates of gastric cancer after 1-year drug exposure, between new users of PPIs and other drugs excluding PPIs, by Cox proportional hazards model. We also analysed the incidence of gastric cancer among PPI users after H. pylori eradication.

Results The analysis included 11 741 patients in matched PPI and non-PPI cohorts after large-scale propensity score matching. During a median follow-up of 4.3 years, PPI use was associated with a 2.37-fold increased incidence of gastric cancer (PPI≥30 days vs non-PPI; 118/51 813 person-years vs 40/49 729 person-years; HR 2.37, 95% CI 1.56 to 3.68, p=0.001). The incidence rates of gastric cancer showed an increasing trend parallel to the duration of PPI use. In H. pylori-eradicated subjects, the incidence of gastric cancer was significantly associated with PPI use over 180 days compared with the non-PPI group (PPI≥180 days vs non-PPI; 30/12 470 person-years vs 9/7814 person-years; HR 2.22, 95% CI 1.05 to 4.67, p=0.036).

Conclusion PPI use was associated with gastric cancer, regardless of H. pylori eradication status. Long-term PPIs should be used with caution in high-risk regions for gastric cancer.

Association between proton pump inhibitor use and gastric cancer: a population-based cohort study using two different types of nationwide databases in Korea — https://gut.bmj.com/content/early/2021/05/11/gutjnl-2020-323845?rss=1
  • Prevacid 24HR
  • Nexium 24HR
  • Prilosec OTC
  • Zegerid OTC

OTC PPIs are only intended for a 14-day course of treatment and can be used up to three times per year.

Over-The-Counter (OTC) Heartburn Treatment — https://www.fda.gov/drugs/information-consumers-and-patients-drugs/over-counter-otc-heartburn-treatment

I was thinking of a snarky comment but decided against posting any snark.

But if you routinely pop a PPI before and/or after chowing down on a meat lover’s pizza you can’t say you weren’t advised that maybe it might be a better idea to give up the pizza.