Gut Microbes Combine To Cause Colon Cancer, Study Suggests (nytimes.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source): Two types of bacteria commonly found in the gut work together to fuel the growth of colon tumors, researchers reported on Thursday. Their study, published in the journal Science, describes what may be a hidden cause of colon cancer, the third most common cancer in the United States. The research also adds to growing evidence that gut bacteria modify the body's immune system in unexpected and sometimes deadly ways. The findings suggest that certain preventive strategies may be effective in the future, like looking for the bacteria in the colons of people getting colonoscopies. If the microbes are present, the patients might warrant more frequent screening; eventually people at high risk for colon cancer may be vaccinated against at least one of the bacterial strains.

Two types of bacteria, Bacteroides fragilis and a strain of E. coli, can pierce a mucus shield that lines the colon and normally blocks invaders from entering, the researchers found. Once past the protective layer, the bacteria grow into a long, thin film, covering the intestinal lining with colonies of the microbes. E. coli then releases a toxin that damages DNA of colon cells, while B. fragilis produces another poison that both damages DNA and inflames the cells. Together they enhance the growth of tumors. Not everyone carries the two types of bacteria in their colon. Those who do seem to pick up microbes in childhood, where they simply become part of the diverse mass of bacteria in the intestinal tract -- the so-called microbiome.

Comments

Everything causes cancer

[pablo_max]

Seriously, it seems like everything we see and do, eat and drink or come into contact is both linked to causing and preventing cancer. Heck, every other week they say that any amount of red wine causes cancer, then the following week, "a glass a day keeps the cancer away". It is likely they have no fucking idea what causes or prevents cancer.

On a side note... those gut critters are super important. Many years ago during my military service, I had gotten a pretty strong bug while in the middle east. To remedy this, the military doc gave me very powerful antibiotics. It did kill the bug, but it also destroyed my digestive system. Also these years later there are many foods, including all dairy products which I am no longer able to eat.
Military docs are the best!

Re:Everything causes cancer

[Hal_Porter]

Experiments show that everything causes cancer in *rats*. But that's because rats are WEAK. Humanity STRONG!

[puffs on cigar and snorts a line of asbestos]

Re:Everything causes cancer

[rmdingler]

There is a poorly understood symbiotic relationship between humans and the microorganisms that share space within us.

Two people with similar metabolisms and nearly identical diets: One is skinny as a rail, and one spends his life trying to keep the weight off or down, or managed... Fecal transplantation at Johns Hopkins.

Re:Everything causes cancer

[kackle]

It is likely they have no fucking idea what causes or prevents cancer.

Keep in mind that the issue is infinitely complex. Considering all the interactions of all the possible human cells and bacteria, viruses, etc., it wouldn't surprise me if they discovered some day that some "germs" damage DNA in certain human cells, but protect the DNA of others!

Re:Everything causes cancer

[BadDreamer]

This procedure has helped a lot of people which have the same symptoms you explain from antibiotic treatment. It's low risk, with no known side effects over hundreds of years of use, and has a high success ratio. These particular sites advertise it to combat overpopulation of a specific nasty bacteria, but it works equally well in cases of damaged intestinal bacteria ecosystem.

I recommend taking a look, and talking to your physician. Your digestive problems can probably be fixed.

https://www.openbiome.org/abou...

http://thefecaltransplantfound...

Re:Everything causes cancer

[Darinbob]

Don't confuse basic research with media desperate to push more stories. I don't think any researcher has said one glass a day of wine will keep cancer away. If you read it in a newspaper instead of a journal, then treat it with healthy suspicion. If you heard it from a friend, then treat it with distrust. If you heard it on Goop, then what the hell were you doing there?

What WILL Happen

[Shogun37]

"WE detected this bacteria in you stool sample. Your insurance company dropped you. The test is $30,000. Add four more zeros for a cure that probably won't work." Isn't science AMAZING?

Re:What WILL Happen

[Anonymous Coward]

You are describing a social system that is "amazing". Science gives you the tools, if you hand those tools to profit-driven psychopaths, that's not the tool's fault.

Re:What WILL Happen

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much this. Most of our advancements in medicine are screwed up by for-profit insurance companies. We all have to appear to be perfect in every way these days even when that perfection is an absolute lie. You can't outright lie to an insurance company, but what you can do is not get tested for things that you know are going to be risks. That way there's no record of it. I'm trying to figure out how this strategy, while rational from a market perspective, actually helps anybody. It's time we figure out that the motivations of a capitalist market are incompatible with the motivations of people seeking to be healthy and doctors seeking to keep them that way.

No, this isn't a socialist post: it's simply a recognition, foreign to way too many, that health care does not obey the fundamental tenets of a free market--the very first of which is that nobody is compelled to buy or sell. There are certain health conditions you damned well are compelled to buy services and products to deal with. Nobody who says they want to fix the system ever seems to want to deal with that. Socialists don't know how to control costs, and capitalists don't want to control costs. Meanwhile, people suffer either way.

Re:What WILL Happen

[uncqual]

Insurance companies in the US now can't refuse to issue or charge more based on pre-existing conditions. As well, they must, in general, pay out 80% of the premiums they collect in claims and, if they pay out less than 80%, must rebate the difference to their policy holders. This leaves up to 20% of premiums for administrative costs (claims processing and validation, customer service, statements, payment processing, leases, utilities, facilities), marketing (including negotiating with providers) and sales, and profit.

It's pretty hard to blame insurance companies for much since the imposition of the PPACA and, at most, you can only blame them for LESS than 20% of the cost. Remember that Medicare and Medicaid which have virtually no marketing costs and no profit motive and have the power of government to coerce private providers to accept their terms unilaterally still have administrative costs. Although proponents of Medicare sometimes assert that its overhead is only 2% vs. private insurers 15-20%, that analysis has some serious flaws.

Also, many (perhaps most -- although the more sophisticated providers have learned how to game the Medicare system to maximize payments -- sometimes with ridiculously inefficient tricks) medical providers can't survive on Medicare, let alone Medicaid, payments alone which is why many practices limit in some way the number of such patients they accept. What this means is that some percentage of private insurance money is subsidizing Medicare and Medicaid.

For example, there is one procedure that most healthy people will have once a year that my provider bills $150 for, my insurance knocks it down to a negotiated rate of $79 and Medicare either pays nothing for (claiming it is bundled with other related services) or about $15 (if it truly is provided in an "unbundled" situation). The actual cost to the provider is almost certainly well below the $79 and above the $15 price points.

Another example is that experienced by someone I know who transitioned to Medicare from employer insurance. On employer insurance, they went in for some routine office visits for a particular (non life threatening and more just annoying) medical condition and saw the doctor, they talked, the doctor did an exam and the visit was over and the provider got something like $150 or so negotiated rate from the insurer. Immediately upon transitioning to Medicare, the entire experience changed -- the doctor still saw the patient but for a bit less time, but then a lower skilled person (I don't think they were even a PA) spent much longer with the patient. The doctor only collected about $30 for the visit, but the whole package ended up through some clever billing, ended up costing Medicare about $150 still but was much less efficient for all involved.

In America, gut bacteria eats you

[transporter_ii]

Hey guys, if you don't get enough fiber, your microbes can turn on you:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/r...

And if you eat the typical American diet, you ain't getting much fiber. Also, for you paleo eaters, actual paleolithic eaters got a pile of fiber every day.

Recommended reading for your microbes eating you: Undoctored, by Dr. William Davis.

FAP , Familial Adenomatous Polyposis

[Guppy]

When reading this article please keep in mind that the study applies to persons with a particular genetic disease called Familial Adenomatous Polyposis (or FAP, huhuhu). Applicability to the general population is uncertain, though the biological mechanism is fascinating.

Might also cause IBS

[Bruha]

They might have stumbled on what causes IBS also. If a single strain is causing inflammation the bodyâ(TM)s reaction might be flush it out.

War isn't winnable, but holding actions work

[PeterM from Berkeley]

You say the war on cancer isn't winnable, and there's some merit to the claim.

However, we have learned to delay and delay and delay the victory of cancer, often until something else kills us first. That may not be "winning", strictly speaking, but if I die of something else and have a good quality of life it makes no practical difference to me.

https://www.cancer.org/latest-...

We've also learned how to prevent a lot of cases of cancer. I don't smoke, I eat high fiber, avoid overindulging in processed meat, I don't binge drink, I get regular exercise, keep my weight reasonable, and I protect my skin from too much sun. All of these reduce my risk of cancer by a good deal. Not to zero, but all these actions reduce my odds of getting cancer. Again, not "winning the war" but considerable progress.

--PM

Cancer != simply division

[DrYak]

All the cells in all the multicellular organisms are cancerous.

For asexually reproducing organisms, there is nothing called cancer. The cells keep mutating and dividing. So what is cancer for them?

Nope. Not at all. Cancer is not simply cell division.
(Though there are some cell that do indeed not divide (e.g.: neuron, for obvious practical reasons) and whose population is repleted by progenitor cells (in that case, that would be neuroblast ; mostly happening in the amydalia region of the brain), there are other cell population were dividing cells are pretty much the norm (e.g.: cardiomyocytes in the heart do divide to replenish the population).)

Cancer is about complete uncontrolled cell divsion. Not only *unchecked* but utterly beyond any control or even coherent organisation.

Obligatory /. car metaphore:
- if cells dividing are cars driving forward
- then cancerous cells are cars witl the pedal's mechanism completely stuck, while in full throttle position. With all consequence that entail with that (including colliding everywhere)

A fully cancerous cell (once it has moved beyond hyperplasia toward full blown cancer ), will divide completely chaotically, even before it's actually ready to divide. It won't simply divide even when unneeded/unrequired by the body (that's "hyperplasia" and that's what you're thinking with your "revolution against the oppressor" logic)
It will divide even when it doesn't make any sense :
- Before having checked that the duplicated genetic material is correct (cancerous cells accumulate mutation at an alarming rate. On a global scale they are terribly inefficient : lots of them die just because they've completely destroyed their DNA. It's just that, on scale of division speed happening in a tumor, there are still a few that miraculously manage to be still semi functionnal enough to keep reproducing. It's survival of the fittest, but with the production of unfits turned up to eleven).
- Before even having correctly duplicated its genetic material (chromosomic aberration are abundant in a tumor, leading to lots of dysfunctional cell)
- Before even having accumulated enough resources to be functional. That's why you don't see cancer in single-cell organism : a cancerous cell isn't even able to function anymore, and require an organism on which to parasytically to rely in order to sustain. (A cancerous amoeba would be unable to eat and will die after a couple of divisions - cancerous cell are defined by their loss of function). (Just like the metaphorical car would run out of fuel pretty fast. From that point of view a cancer is closer to a trolley-bus : able to tap into the city's resources (electric grid) to still drive. And just like the cancer cell, a lot of the trolley bus would derail their electrical feed and die of)

A cancerous cell isn't simply "reverting to a pre-multicellular state". A cancerous cell is going batshit insane about division in a way that could not be survivable outside a multicellular organism.