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.

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.

Vulvar Melanoma Is Increasing in Older Women

Vulvar Melanoma Is Increasing in Older Women

The national incidence of vulvar melanoma is on the rise in women aged over 60 years, climbing by an average of 2.2% per year during 2000–2016, Maia K. Erickson reported in a poster at the virtual annual meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology.

These are often aggressive malignancies. The 5-year survival following diagnosis of vulvar melanoma in women aged 60 years or older was 39.7%, compared with 61.9% in younger women, according to Ms. Erickson, a visiting research fellow in the department of dermatology at Northwestern University, Chicago.

Consumption of ultra-processed foods and cancer risk: results from NutriNet-Santé prospective cohort

Conclusions – In this large prospective study, a 10% increase in the proportion of ultra-processed foods in the diet was associated with a significant increase of greater than 10% in risks of overall and breast cancer. Further studies are needed to better understand the relative effect of the various dimensions of processing (nutritional composition, food additives, contact materials, and neoformed contaminants) in these associations.

We categorized all food and drink items of the NutriNet-Santé composition table into one of the four food groups in NOVA, a food classification system based on the extent and purpose of industrial food processing.94243 This study primarily focused on the “ultra-processed foods” NOVA group. This group includes mass produced packaged breads and buns; sweet or savory packaged snacks; industrialized confectionery and desserts; sodas and sweetened drinks; meat balls, poultry and fish nuggets, and other reconstituted meat products transformed with addition of preservatives other than salt (for example, nitrites); instant noodles and soups; frozen or shelf stable ready meals; and other food products made mostly or entirely from sugar, oils and fats, and other substances not commonly used in culinary preparations such as hydrogenated oils, modified starches, and protein isolates. Industrial processes notably include hydrogenation, hydrolysis, extruding, moulding, reshaping, and pre-processing by frying. Flavouring agents, colours, emulsifiers, humectants, non-sugar sweeteners, and other cosmetic additives are often added to these products to imitate sensorial properties of unprocessed or minimally processed foods and their culinary preparations or to disguise undesirable qualities of the final product.

Read the BMJ study here.

Linking Sucrose to Hyperlipidemia and Cancer

In rats.  But it’s the behavior of the sugar industry rats that is more disturbing.

Read the entire study here.

Our study contributes to a wider body of literature documenting industry manipulation of science. Industries seeking to influence regulation have a history of funding research resulting in industry-favorable interpretations of controversial evidence related to health effects of smoking [15,16], therapeutic effects of pharmaceutical drugs [17,18], the relationship between sugar-sweetened beverage consumption and weight gain or obesity [5], and the causes of climate change, [19] among other issues. The tobacco industry also has a long history of conducting research on the health effects of its products that is often decades ahead of the general scientific community and not publishing results that do not support its agenda [2023]. This paper provides empirical data suggesting that the sugar industry has a similar history of conducting, but not publishing studies with results that are counter to its commercial interests.

Gastric Cancer Risk Doubled With Long-term PPI Use

Source: Gastric Cancer Risk Doubled With Long-term PPI Use

The study was published online October 31 in Gut.

The researchers point out, however, that this was an observational study, which can’t prove cause and effect.

A strength of the study is its use of data from a large population-based database with complete information on subsequent diagnoses and drug prescriptions, which minimizes selection, information, and recall biases, the researchers say. Use of strict exclusion criteria as well as propensity score adjustment to control for potential confounders and restricting the sample to patients with successful H pylori eradication are other strengths.

In terms of study weaknesses, the researchers  lacked information on some risk factors, such as diet, family history, and socioeconomic status.  And despite the large sample of more than 63,000 H pylori–infected patients, the small number of gastric cancer cases did not allow for any “meaningful evaluation of the dosage effect and role of different PPIs,” the researchers say.