Ultra-processed foods may drive the risk of colon cancer by fueling inflammation in the body, according to a study that researchers believe could “revolutionize cancer treatment”.
Florida researchers have uncovered a potential link between inflammatory foods in the diet and the growth of tumors in the gut by analyzing the tumors of people with cancer.
“It is well known that patients with an unhealthy diet have increased inflammation in the body,” said study author Dr. Timothy Yeatman, professor of surgery at the University of South Florida (USF) and associate director of the Center for Translational Research and Innovation in Tampa. General Hospital (TGH) Cancer Institute, in a statement.
“Now we’re seeing this inflammation in the colon tumors themselves, and the cancer is like a chronic wound that won’t heal.
“If your body lives on ultra-processed foods every day, its ability to heal this wound is diminished due to inflammation and suppression of the immune system, which ultimately allows cancer to grow.”
The disease is on the rise, especially among young people, almost doubling since the early 1990s.
And a USF and TGH study found that one of the main reasons may be inflammation caused by diet.
Mohammed Haneefa Nizamudeen / stacey_newman/iStock / Getty Images Plus / Canva
TGH scientists collected, froze and analyzed 162 tumor samples from colorectal cancer patients, looking for signs of inflammation.
Inflammation is a key function of the immune system, but in some people—such as those who eat an inflammatory diet—it may never be completely turned off, leading to constant low-level chronic inflammation in the body.
Inside the tumors, the researchers observed an excess of molecules that promote inflammation and a shortage of those that help resolve it and promote healing.
They concluded that these tumors may be caused by inflammation in the body, fueled by inflammatory foods in the diet.
John Dudley/The University of South Florida
“These foods are also common for fast food restaurants that serve rural and poor areas with less than optimal food choices.”
Ultra-processed foods are defined as foods that have been manufactured industrially, using production methods and chemical additives that are not available to someone cooking at home.
“It’s pretty difficult to find bread anywhere in the store that doesn’t have soybean oil as the primary oil,” he said. “This goes for bread, cereal, doughnuts, pies, cookies, chips, salad dressings and mayonnaise.
“It’s fascinating to count the number of ‘unrecognizable’ ingredients in bread besides eggs, flour, sugar and salt: preservatives, anti-fungals, dyes, etc.
The researchers concluded that their study could pave the way for the future of cancer treatment—something they called “resolution medicine,” which would involve replacing inflammatory foods with anti-inflammatory foods in the diet to help the body restore its own healing mechanisms.
“This has the potential to revolutionize the treatment of cancer, moving away from drugs to use natural healing processes,” Yeatman said in a statement. “It’s a critical step toward addressing chronic inflammation and preventing disease before it starts.”
“I believe we should rethink the food pyramid to include more vegetables, less grains, more fish and more grass-fed meat,” he said, advising people to favor omega-3s in their diet, which are known to be anti-inflammatory.
This study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Link
Soundararajan, R., Maurin, MM, Rodriguez-Silva, J., Upadhyay, G., Alden, AJ, Gowda, SGB, Schell, MJ, Yang, M., Levine, NJ, Gowda, D., Sundaraswamy, PM , Hui, SP, Pflieger, L., Wang, H., Marcet, J., Martinez, C., Bennett, RD, Chudzinski, A., Karachristos, A., Nywening, TM, Cavallaro, PM, Anderson, ML, Coffey, RJ, Nebozhyn, MV, Loboda, A., Coppola, D., Pledger, WJ, Halade, G., Yeatman, TJ (2024). Integrating lipidomics with targeted, single-cell, and spatial transcriptomics defines an unresolved pro-inflammatory state in colon cancer, Intestine. https://doi.org/10.1136/gutjnl-2024-332535.
