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posted by janrinok on Monday July 21 2014, @11:58PM   Printer-friendly
from the long-winded dept.

ScienceDaily reports that:

Colorectal cancer has been linked to carbohydrate-rich western diets, but the underlying mechanisms have been unclear. A new study shows that gut microbes metabolize carbohydrates in the diet, causing intestinal cells to proliferate and form tumors in mice that are genetically predisposed to colorectal cancer. Treatment with antibiotics or a low-carbohydrate diet significantly reduced tumors in these mice, suggesting that these easy interventions could prevent a common type of colorectal cancer in humans.

Carbohydrates account for about half of the daily caloric intake of adults on a western-style diet, and previous studies have linked carbohydrate-rich diets to colorectal cancer in humans. This type of cancer is also frequently associated with mutations in a tumor suppressor gene called APC as well as the MSH2 gene, which plays a critical role in repairing DNA damage. However, it has been unclear why mutations affecting the DNA repair pathway are much more common in colorectal cancer compared with other cancers. Because gut microbes also contribute to the development of colorectal cancer, Martin and his team suspected that they could interact with diet to explain how the mutations could cause this type of cancer.

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by mendax on Tuesday July 22 2014, @12:03AM

    by mendax (2840) on Tuesday July 22 2014, @12:03AM (#72078)

    I'm at the age where I need to get a colonoscopy done, and I like eating carbs. I guess I'm doomed.... or I can paraphrase what Sark shouts in Tron [youtube.com] and tell the doctor to "Bring in the anal probe!"

    --
    It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday July 22 2014, @12:17AM

    by frojack (1554) on Tuesday July 22 2014, @12:17AM (#72083) Journal

    It seems the antibiotic use is intended to kill the gut the microbes. But you have to wonder what could go wrong with that.

    Are these gut microbes essential to digestion and deriving nutrition, or are they some random microbe that we tend to carry around? Wouldn't feeding these gut microbes antibiotics just breed a more resistant strain of them?

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by dry on Tuesday July 22 2014, @02:50AM

      by dry (223) on Tuesday July 22 2014, @02:50AM (#72114) Journal

      What I came to say. I'll add that I was just listening to an article about how important a healthy gut microbe ecosystem is to general health with the focus on the mind, the studies that were quoted were on mice but if the right gut microbes can make mice seem happier, more content, better groomers and even make autistic mice more sociable... Then there are the studies showing the benefits of fecal transplants, we really should be looking at encouraging a healthy gut ecosystem rather then nuking it.
      Came across this a while back as well, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_subtilis#1900s [wikipedia.org]

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday July 22 2014, @12:25AM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Tuesday July 22 2014, @12:25AM (#72085) Homepage

    I'm starting to see this euphemism (to say the least) pop up all over the place..."Western Diet". [wikipedia.org]

    From as early as my friends and I could talk, all the way up to now, we call that shit "junk food." Western fucking diet, indeed...this is the kind of shit that happens when you let McDonalds throw too much money at congressmen...not that they would dare disparage what's soon to be the only employment left in America, anyway.

    • (Score: 1) by Adamsjas on Tuesday July 22 2014, @12:44AM

      by Adamsjas (4507) on Tuesday July 22 2014, @12:44AM (#72090)

      Isn't a carb a carb, regardless of where it comes from?

      One of my earliest memories is of my mom making bread. I though it was a pillow she was beating up.

      It was carbs. And that was well before Ray Kroc bought out Richard McDonald.

      Carbs come from lots of places, but most of it from wheat and rice and potatoes, and without those we would probably all still be swinging from the trees.

      I wonder why that article used the words western diet, since carbs are the staple of the world.

      • (Score: 2) by elgrantrolo on Tuesday July 22 2014, @08:28AM

        by elgrantrolo (1903) on Tuesday July 22 2014, @08:28AM (#72197) Journal

        Isn't a carb a carb, regardless of where it comes from?

        I'd say that a carb (singular) is a carb, wherever it comes from. The key here is that the food produced by McD's and similar logistics experts is made to not be satiating at all, helping the year on year growth of sales. Since the price is more or less static, the quantity eaten grows and with it, the waistlines.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by opinionated_science on Tuesday July 22 2014, @05:02PM

        by opinionated_science (4031) on Tuesday July 22 2014, @05:02PM (#72351)

        no, carbohydrate is the generic term for any sugar with the empirical formulate Cm(H20)n (site wizards, can we please have sub/super???!!!)

        The metabolism of humans , trys on first ingestion to break down "long chain carbs" into shorter chains (enzyme amylase is in spit - chew your food kids...).

        Refined sugar (and products using it) are absorbed much quicker than complex-carbohydates. Think of the difference of a glass of orange juice, and an orange.

        "Western society" and mass industrialisation of food has lead to an excess increase in the concentrations of molecules, that were not previously present.

        High-Fructrose-Corn-Syrup is used in a great many foods in the USA (but not in Europe) and has the potential of inducing Type-II diabetes, by reducing the effectiveness of insulin. Hence the definition "insulin resistant diabetes".

        When your mum was making bread, how much sugar did she add? Check out the sides of cheap bread in the supermarket , HFCS.

        Wheat, rice and potatoes are just fine, if a reasonable component of the diet. The major problem, is that that industry has a perverse incentive to inhibt all attempts discourage you from consumption. "Western diet" appears to be a synonym for "unrestricted access to food".

        If you can read the article, it was quite a subtle experiment.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by arslan on Tuesday July 22 2014, @01:11AM

      by arslan (3462) on Tuesday July 22 2014, @01:11AM (#72099)

      I don't get why it is only "Western Diet" that is high in carb. If anything oriental cultures have more carbs. I grow up eating porridge and rice (and rice noodles). In a third world country that's the most affordable and pervasive food and given everything else is comparatively more expensive to fill the tummy, the ratio of rice to everything else is much much higher. I was actually surprised when I first landed in the U.S. to study, the ratio of protein and veggies I get compared to carbs in the American diet. That and the insanely gigantic portion of course.

      Heck take a fairly normal American breakfast, sure you'd have lots of carbs in the hashbrowns and toast, but you'd still get lots of protein in the eggs, bacon and sausages. Where I came from, the regular breakfast was either fried rice, fried or soup noodles or porridge with minimal, if any, meat and veggies. Almost completely carbs devoid of any nutritional value. Same thing for lunch and dinner. Pound for pound, oriental diets have more carbs.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Tuesday July 22 2014, @02:04AM

        by frojack (1554) on Tuesday July 22 2014, @02:04AM (#72106) Journal

        Where I came from, the regular breakfast was either fried rice, fried or soup noodles or porridge with minimal, if any, meat and veggies. Almost completely carbs devoid of any nutritional value. Same thing for lunch and dinner.

        I don't think you can say that carbs are devoid of nutritional value.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 22 2014, @03:14AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 22 2014, @03:14AM (#72121)

        Ever see the US Govt's food pyramid?
        Is it a coincidence that the most-subsidized foods (grains) are also the most-recommended foods?
        I think not.

        Is that chart all about crony capitalism and not about health?
        I think so.

        -- gewg_

        • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday July 22 2014, @03:25PM

          by urza9814 (3954) on Tuesday July 22 2014, @03:25PM (#72309) Journal

          Ever see the US Govt's food pyramid?
          Is it a coincidence that the most-subsidized foods (grains) are also the most-recommended foods?
          I think not.

          Only if you're eating cattle feed. The top recipient of subsidies is actually *meat*, by a rather large margin. 35.4% of US ag subsidies go to cattle feed. Second place is cotton at 17.7%. We don't get to grains destined for human consumption until wheat at only 14.6%.

      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday July 22 2014, @03:58PM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 22 2014, @03:58PM (#72321)

        "If anything oriental cultures have more carbs."

        Periodic famine keeps them thin. Horrible but true. Just ask Chairman Mao how many died of obesity during the great leap forward.

        If your diet has the same macronutrient ratios and biochemical hacks as the stuff feedlots use to fatten up livestock, unless you at least occasionally starve, you're gonna get really fat, just like a hog in a feedlot.

        You can live off a high carb diet forever without diabetic problems or obesity, just as long as you're willing to go thru life agonizingly hungry most of the time.

        That was the trick the ancients used to keep thin, which doesn't work so well when you've got a basically infinite supply of cheap junk food.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by evilviper on Tuesday July 22 2014, @04:32AM

      by evilviper (1760) on Tuesday July 22 2014, @04:32AM (#72145) Homepage Journal

      From as early as my friends and I could talk, all the way up to now, we call that shit "junk food."

      Rice, pasta, potatoes, etc., are not "junk food".

      But you have a (small) point... Can't get much more carb-heavy than East Asians eating rice at ever meal, which is the furthest thing in the world from "western".

      this is the kind of shit that happens when you let McDonalds throw too much money at congressmen

      McDonald's hamburgers are fat and red-meat heavy, not carb-heavy. This study may indicate a full-time McDonalds diet would be healthier for you than an Olympic athlete's diet, as long as you don't supersize your fries.

      --
      Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
      • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday July 22 2014, @12:35PM

        by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Tuesday July 22 2014, @12:35PM (#72256) Homepage

        In saying "carbs and meat," "fries and burgers" is implied. Even the picture in the Wikipedia article is a burger and some curly fries.

        When they say "western diet," carbs and meat, they're not talking about a cut of lean fish and some seasoned rice -- they're talking about greasy-ass fried burgers and fries loaded with high-fructose corn syrup, ammonia(pink slime) preservatives, traces of industrial chemicals, and grease. Lots and lots of grease. All washed down with a gigantic drink consisting of mostly pure sugar.

        I rest my case: it's clear that "Western Diet" is a euphemism for "junk food," or alternately, "processed shit," if you will.

        • (Score: 2) by evilviper on Wednesday July 23 2014, @06:22AM

          by evilviper (1760) on Wednesday July 23 2014, @06:22AM (#72651) Homepage Journal

          In saying "carbs and meat," "fries and burgers" is implied

          TFA never says "carbs and meat".

          the picture in the Wikipedia article is a burger and some curly fries.

          Neither the summary or article link to Wikipedia. That's a little bit of irrelevant crud YOU added to the discussion.

          When they say "western diet," carbs and meat

          TFA never says "carbs and meat".

          it's clear that "Western Diet" is a euphemism for "junk food,"

          Only in your own, fevered imagination. A "Western Diet" is consumed by most of the 1st world, including those areas that have never seen fast food.

          --
          Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Theophrastus on Tuesday July 22 2014, @12:50AM

    by Theophrastus (4044) on Tuesday July 22 2014, @12:50AM (#72093)

    From linked to article:

    These two treatments also reduced levels of certain gut microbes that metabolize carbohydrates to produce a fatty acid called butyrate

    so, if we blocked butyrate (bound it up, found another bug which eats it, derivatize it in some fashion) then all those tasty snickerdoodles might be defanged (as far as colon cancer was concerned)..? let'see/hm... even a niacin receptor [aacrjournals.org] can do that. But i say to some venture capitalist out there, let me design a yogurt with a Lactobacillus which has a taste for butyrate [Stephen Colbert (money) grabbing gesture] ...or hell, just add the bugs directly to the ring-dings, hohos, or what-have-ya -- yum!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 23 2014, @11:00AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 23 2014, @11:00AM (#72709)

      But see also: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16460475 [nih.gov]

      Butyrate, the four-carbon fatty acid, is formed in the human colon by bacterial fermentation of carbohydrates (including dietary fiber), and putatively suppresses colorectal cancer (CRC). Butyrate has diverse and apparently paradoxical effects on cellular proliferation, apoptosis and differentiation that may be either pro-neoplastic or anti-neoplastic, depending upon factors such as the level of exposure, availability of other metabolic substrate and the intracellular milieu.

      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22517765 [nih.gov]

      The direct effect of butyrate on tumorigenesis has been assessed in a number of in vivo animal models, which have also yielded conflicting results. In part, this may be explained by methodological differences in the amount and route of butyrate administration, which are likely to significantly influence delivery of butyrate to the distal colon. Nonetheless, there appears to be some evidence that delivery of an adequate amount of butyrate to the appropriate site protects against early tumorigenic events

  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 22 2014, @02:12AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 22 2014, @02:12AM (#72108)

    "Gut Microbes turn Carbs into Colorectal Cancer"

    FUCK YOU. All that dram to put up another website, how's your BS any different than slashdot BS?

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by ElderGeek on Tuesday July 22 2014, @03:30AM

    by ElderGeek (1387) on Tuesday July 22 2014, @03:30AM (#72127)

    Nutritional Ketosis [reddit.com]

    I typically keep under 20 grams of carbs a day and that is mostly from vegetables, cream and cheese.

    My blood sugar is now in the normal range, I don't get hungry every 60 minutes any more. Nor am I in danger of falling asleep at my desk any more. Energy levels are up and I feel great most of the time now. I will have to add "not likely to get colon cancer" as another health benefit of NK.

    Oh, and the weight is melting off without any effort as well. All I had to do was give up food that was killing me.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by keplr on Tuesday July 22 2014, @04:29AM

      by keplr (2104) on Tuesday July 22 2014, @04:29AM (#72144) Journal

      Having to essentially give up all beer would be a deal breaker for me. Why even live? :P

      I'm not sure about the science behind keto, and the community comes off as rather cult-like. I don't doubt that people see results, which strengthens their beliefs in the science. They absolutely do lose weight, if they stick to the diet and take a bit of exercise. But I think this has more to do with a sheer reduction in overall caloric intake. You're essentially cutting out the single largest source of empty calories in a person's diet. Whatever else you put in its place is going to be an improvement, and likely far less energy dense which means it's harder to take in too many calories because of the sheer volume you'd have to eat.

      --
      I don't respond to ACs.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 22 2014, @05:03AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 22 2014, @05:03AM (#72150)

        Having to essentially give up all beer would be a deal breaker for me. Why even live? :P

        To drink more straight vodka (of course, cooled sub-zero C) seems like a good motivation. Secondary benefit: your breath won't smell (of anything else but vodka).

  • (Score: 1) by bootsy on Tuesday July 22 2014, @08:35AM

    by bootsy (3440) on Tuesday July 22 2014, @08:35AM (#72198)

    The article doesn't mention if the cause is simple carbohydrates ( sugars ) or complex ( starches ). Indeed what about low glycemic index carbs?

    You do need carbohydrates, they give the body energy to actually do stuff. Admittedly the average amount of physical labo(u)r done in Europe and Northern America has dropped so we don't need as much but just cutting carbs naively could just end up making you faint and collapse if your blood sugar level drops too low.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by geb on Tuesday July 22 2014, @01:01PM

    by geb (529) on Tuesday July 22 2014, @01:01PM (#72264)

    It's quite rare for evolution ever to perfect something. Most of the time, an adaptation produces as many problems as it solves. Human biology is full of examples. We start walking upright, and the posture frees up our hands for all sorts of tasks, but it leaves us prone to back problems, worn hips, damaged knees, hernias, and so on. Carbohydrates in our diet is another example. It was the ability to digest carbohydrates that let us support the energy demands of big human brains, but that change was relatively recent in our ancestry, and the rest of the body hasn't fully adapted to match the change in diet, even after all this time.

    • (Score: 2) by evilviper on Wednesday July 23 2014, @06:25AM

      by evilviper (1760) on Wednesday July 23 2014, @06:25AM (#72652) Homepage Journal

      We start walking upright, and the posture frees up our hands for all sorts of tasks, but it leaves us prone to back problems, worn hips, damaged knees, hernias, and so on.

      Are you suggesting animals that don't walk upright, don't get back problems, worn joints, etc.? I'm having a hard time seeing the down side to walking upright.

      --
      Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.