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Diarrhea Bug May Offer Cancer Cure
Makarand writes "Researchers now think that the
diarrhea bug may be of help in
building resistance to colon cancer. The toxins produced
by E. coli, the diarrhea bug, irritate the lining of the bowels
and also interact with the cells in a way that prevents them
from becoming cancerous. This may very well explain why colorectal
cancer is common in the developed countries but rare in the
developing countries. Researchers who added E. coli toxins to a dish containing
rapidly dividing cancer cells could almost brought the cancerous growth
to a halt."
Unfortunately, they will also bring you to a halt as well.
As I recall, the active ingredient in broccoli is glucoraphanin, a precursor to sulphoraphane. The mechanism of sulphorophane is to induce the body to produce enzymes that attack free radicals.
Other anti-oxidants in fruit and vegetables may also scavenge free radicals, reducing their harm to DNA. But perhaps the sheer bulk of those foods also speeds the passage of the free radicals out of the system, so they have less time to do damage.
Now we have an article about an experiment using E. Coli toxins to slow down the rapid division of cancer cells in a petri dish. As others have pointed out, many toxic substances should also have this effect. But how did they decide that this effect was what was helping, and not the speedy elimination of free redicals?
Perhaps when you are looking for a lucrative anti-cancer drug, wishful thinking takes over.
Free book: Science Toys You Can Make
The reason I don't buy it is a personal reason. My father and mother in law died of colon cancer and they had the worst eating habits.
Typically they would make some edible food in the morning and then nibble on it all day (hot or cold whether they washed their hands or not.) They bought pepto bismol in the economy size twice a week and thought that was normal!
This is a nice study, but there are other factors. My parents in law had well water that had oil in it, so I'd say environmental issues play a large roll in cancer.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
Yes, E.coli has gotten a bad rap because a couple of its strains (like 0157 and 0111) have caused terrible outbreaks of conditions MUCH worse than diarhea, including death of children and total organ failure. But most variants of E.coli (named for MC Escher because of its capability of rolling into a ball like a creature in one of Escher's drawings) are perfectly harmless or even beneficial* to our normal digestive process.
If anything the blame for the outbreaks lies with the meat processors who slaughter cattle in unsanitary ways that allows the contents of the gut to get mixed with the meat we eat. When this happens with steak, it really doesn't have much of an effect since the interior of the steak is never exposed to the E.coli and the exterior is cooked. But when a gut-splattered beef is left unwashed and then ground into hamburger - there is a chance that the interior of a hamburger will not be cooked to a temperature high enough to kill the E.coli (hambugers should never be served rare).
* there is current research being done to try and overwhelm 0157 in cattle by colonizing their tract with just beneficial strains. But this implies the meat processors aren't going to ficx the problem the right way by getting the sh!t out of our food in the first place.
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