cancer

We have been wondering for decades if being vegetarian prevents cancer. We already have a very clear answer

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There is a endless diets in different parts of the world, conditioned largely by local society and culture, such as in Spain, where the Mediterranean dietwhich is varied. But the focus of the debate is on what is the best diet to maintain good health in the long term. And here the vegetarian diet has a lot to say. Giving answers. For years, we have known that reducing our consumption of processed meat is beneficial for our health, but a new macro study led by the University of Oxford has put compelling data on the table about how dietary choice directly impacts the risk of developing different types of cancer. The work published in the magazine British Journal of Cancer is consolidated as the further analysis performed to date on this topic. And it is no wonder, since researchers have been able to analyze the histories of 1.8 million women and men who participated in nine prospective studies across three continents. A shield. Until now, previous studies they were already pointing that vegetarians had a lower oncological risk, but there was not the necessary statistical power to refine the data and make this categorical statement. But this study has come to change this, since researchers reveal that vegetarians have a significantly lower risk of suffering from five types of cancer compared to people who eat meat regularly. Results. Obviously, there are many other factors that influence this matter such as weight or lifestyle, but even adjusting the data, a clear result has been seen, which is summarized in the following risk reductions: 31% lower risk of suffering from multiple myeloma. 28% lower risk of kidney cancer. 21% lower risk of pancreatic cancer. 12% lower risk of pancreatic cancer. 9% lower risk of breast cancer. But the curious thing about these data is that for ten other types of cancer studied, such as lung cancer in non-smokers, science has not found a significant difference. And this opens the door to seeing why this diet is so specific for specific cancers. The small print. Not everything is so positive with this diet, since the study has shown that vegetarians have almost double the risk of developing esophageal cancer compared to people who eat meat in their diet. Because? According to researchers, the benefits of a vegetarian diet in cancer are explained by the greater intake of fruits, vegetables, fiber and the absence of processed meats. But the fact that they have a higher risk of having esophageal cancer is related to the nutritional deficiencies that vegetarians may have. And the lack of certain exclusive or more present nutrients in foods of animal origin could be weakening the natural defenses of this tissue. The rest of the diets. In addition to the war that may exist between meat and vegetables, researchers wanted to go further to look at the rest of the diet. In this case, the pescetarianswho do not consume meat, but do consume fish and seafood, had a lower risk of developing breast, kidney and colon cancer. But when we talk about vegansis where there are certain important nuances, since it has been seen that they have a higher risk of suffering from colorectal cancer. However, the researchers themselves point out that there are still not enough statistical cases to accurately evaluate the impact of veganism on rarer cancers. The recommendations. Given this study, everything that had been done in oncology is maintained, since the norm is to prioritize whole grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables in the diet, limiting the consumption of red and processed meats. Although logically always ensuring that all nutritional needs are met and following medical advice. Images | amin ramezani In Xataka | Having a beer or a wine at 65 seems like a harmless indulgence. We have more and more evidence to the contrary.

why the next great revolution against cancer is to make it chronic

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If we ask someone what the goal of cancer medicine is, the answer is almost automatic: cure itmake it disappear or win the war against this devastating disease. However, in molecular biology laboratories and advanced oncology consultations, the verb is changing, since we no longer speak of “eradicating” at all costs, but to contain. An idea that may be quite shocking, but which is proposed as the future of medicine. The idea. Douglas Hanahan, one of the most influential figures in modern biology and one of the great responsible of the hallmarks of cancerwhich are the hallmarks that define a tumor, has put this idea on the table. In this case, it points to a concept that clashes with our intuition, but fits with scientific data: cancer without disease. The idea is provocative, since it suggests that histologically malignant tumors are possible living off of us without killing us or affecting our quality of life. The objective is no longer the total elimination of the enemy and becomes something more pragmatic: keeping it under biological and clinical control so that the patient dies with the cancer, but not from the cancer. There is no cure. In a recent interview and in your updates of the Hallmarks of Cancer 2022, Hanahan insists that the complexity of cancer makes a universal cure unlikely. Instead, it proposes to understand what specific capacities sustain the tumor, such as evasion of the immune system, inflammation, replicative immortality… to selectively block them. In this way, it is not about destroying the entire tissue, but about converting a lethal process into an indolent one. This is what Hanahan calls “adaptive resistance”, since we assume that the tumor will try to look for new escape routes, and we will change the therapeutic strategy to block them, maintaining the tumor ecosystem within safety margins. It already happens. All of this is not a futuristic theory, but rather it is already happening on two very different fronts: the tumors that we decide not to touch and the aggressive tumors that we have learned to stop. Not trying is sometimes the best. The most literal example of “cancer without disease” is found in the prostate and thyroid. Here, diagnostic technology has advanced so much that we detect tumors that, biologically, would never have caused problems. In the case of prostate canceralmost half of low-risk tumors now enter active surveillance protocols. In this way, instead of operating or radiating (with the risk of impotence and incontinence that entails), doctors begin to monitor the mass. And the data, after 20 years of follow-up in large groups of people, are quite clear: cancer-specific mortality in these well-selected groups is less than 1%. In the clinic. With all this, the idea is that it is better to live with a controlled cancer than to pay the physical price of curing it, although logically, if it goes too far out of containment, the most correct thing is to try to eradicate it with the tools we have. In the case of papillary thyroid cancer We also have this same situation, since overdiagnosis has led to stopping aggressive surgery in favor of observing tumors that the body keeps at bay on its own. The new chronicity. Where the paradigm changes most dramatically is in advanced or metastatic cancer. Twenty years ago, a diagnosis of stage IV lung cancer or metastatic melanoma was almost invariably a short-term terminal sentence. Today, thanks to immunotherapy and targeted therapies, a new category of patient has been born: the “treatable but not curable.” With this strategy there are already different organizations, like the British NCRIwhich describe growing cohorts of patients living for years with the disease. In this case they have metastases, but they live a normal life with their jobs and trips while receiving chronic or intermittent treatments to contain the disease. But without staying on the road. Changing the rules. This new paradigm within oncology has forced changing the rules of the game in clinical trialssince the aim is no longer just for the tumor to disappear, but for prolonged stabilization. With regard to toxicity, the logic of “maximum tolerated dose” in chemotherapy (give medication until the patient can tolerate it) does not work if you are going to treat the patient for five years, since their quality of life with very aggressive chemotherapy will decrease each time. Right now, quality of life and low toxicity are prioritized with ‘milder’ medications to allow long-term treatment without major side effects. This is why cancer is beginning to resemble, in its management, diabetes or HIV: a chronic condition that requires lifelong medication, but that does not necessarily dictate the date of your death. Psychological problems. Logically, this model of ‘chronic cancer’ has its shadows. Medical literature warns, for example, that living with “dormant” or controlled cancer places an enormous mental burden on patients. Studies on active surveillance show that, for some patients, the anxiety of having a “ticking time bomb” inside worsens their quality of life more than the surgery itself. And each review consultation can mean a world to know if it has gone more or less. And more problems. In addition to this, you must know that not all of these diseases can become chronic, such as glioblastoma or pancreatic cancer, which continue to have an aggressive biology that, today, escapes this lazy control. But also, turning cancer into chronic is great news for the patient, but a titanic challenge for public health, since it implies treating more people, for more years, with very high-cost biological drugs. The summary. Hanahan’s “cancer without disease” is not giving up. It is accepting that, if we cannot eliminate the enemy, victory lies in keeping it at bay long enough for life to continue its course and even allow science to continue advancing. As mortality statistics suggest: more and more people are dying with cancer, but fewer people of cancer. And in that nuance lies an entire medical revolution. Images | National Cancer … Read more

Working in a nuclear power plant is not the best way to avoid cancer. Now it turns out that its waste also serves to cure it

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If there is a terrifying and mainstream disease, it is cancer: after all, according to the WHOone in five people will develop it at some point in their life. Although in some cases the risk factors vary depending on the type of cancer, working in a nuclear power plant poses some riskas long as there is greater exposure to ionizing radiation, even if there are no accidents or more intense exposure through maintenance work. Paradoxically, the activity of nuclear power plants, which can cause cancer, also serves to generate the basis of the medicine to cure it. And we are not talking about a potentially distant study, but rather something that can already be materialized. In fact, the United Kingdom has already taken a step forward to transform some of its radioactive waste into anti-cancer medication. The world’s first lead-212 radiopharmaceutical ecosystem. Because in the UK they have closed an agreement between the public body Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and the biotechnology company Bicycle Therapeutics for which the latter will have 400 tons of reprocessed uranium to extract the valuable (for the medical industry) lead – 212 for 15 years. Behind Bicycle is Sir Greg Winter, co-founder of the company and winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018. This will provide them with the infrastructure to create the world’s first end-to-end lead-212 radiopharmaceutical ecosystem, from discovery to commercial supply. So explains it Mike Hannay, Chief Product and Supply Chain Officer at Bicycle Therapeutics. The benefits of lead – 212. Lead – 212 is an isotope used in therapeutic contexts thanks to its particular decay properties, so that it emits both alpha and beta particles. While the former provide high-energy, short-range cytotoxicity, the latter have a more extended range, targeting micro-metastasis. In a simplified way, this medically applicable isotope is essential for precision treatments against tumors resistant to other therapies. Thus, it carries radiation and acts directly on cancer cells to destroy tumors, minimizing the damage to the surrounding healthy tissue. This type of technique offers promising results in prostate cancers and neuroendocrine tumors of organs such as the intestine or pancreas. Extracting lead-212 is an arduous task. Converting the waste from nuclear power plants into cancer treatments seems like a fantastic idea for two reasons: because of the cure for cancer itself and the problem of dealing with radioactive waste, one of the great challenges faced by these energy industries, which have also explored other avenues such as take advantage of the remaining energy. But getting here has not been easy: the extraction process of this isotope has been carried out by the United Kingdom National Nuclear Laboratory (UKNNL) with a complex chemical process that requires the isolation of scandalously small quantities of the precursor material from the used nuclear fuel. Thus, first the Thorium-228 is extracted from the reprocessed uranium to later process it into Radium-224. It is then loaded into a lead-212 generator that has been custom-made for Bicycle Therapeutics’ needs by US company SpectronRx. This is a continuous regeneration, producing enough lead-212 to deliver tens of thousands of doses of precision therapy per year. The laboratory explains that the critical part is in the beginning: “The initial precursor material extracted is comparable to finding a single drop of water in an Olympic swimming pool.” From that minute amount, an even smaller fraction of lead-212 is separated. First discover the universe, then cure cancer. In addition to this unexpected use of nuclear power plant waste, in recent weeks a group of researchers from the University of York have evidenced in a study that the intense radiation captured in the beam absorbers of particle accelerators could be reused to produce materials used in cancer therapies. Those particle accelerators They are used, among other things, in experiments to discover the matter of which the universe is composed. In Xataka | The rarest element on Earth aims to cure cancer. And Europe is already accelerating its production In Xataka | We have been believing that bacteria are a weapon against tumors for 150 years. And finally we have discovered how Cover | Jakub Zerdzicki and Ivan S

The rarest element on Earth aims to cure cancer. And Europe is already accelerating its production

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In the fight against cancer there are many ‘weapons’ that we have at our disposalsuch as chemotherapy or radiotherapy. The problem is that these are assimilated like bombing a city to destroy a single house: it is achieved, but with a lot of collateral damage. But this can be solved if We attack only what interests usin this case a tumor cell, and science points to one of the rarest elements on the planet as a candidate to achieve this. Where are we now. The goal of science is to find the most specific therapies possible so that they attack a tumor cell and not a healthy cell with the aim of reducing the adverse effects of the treatment and also being more effective. For this there are different options such as immunotherapy or the use of very specific antibodies, but there is still a long way to go. A particle. He astatinewhose name comes from the Greek astats (“unstable”), lives up to its name. It is the rarest natural element on Earth and disappears almost as soon as it is formed and that is very interesting to us. Especially a ‘version’ of this element which is At-211 which has a half-life of only 7.2 hours. But this instability is part of its magic. At-211 is what Texas A&M scientists call a “Goldilocks” isotope: perfect for the job. Its advantages. Currently, heto traditional radiation used in cancer treatments have a great impact on the body when traveling over long distances. But At-211 emits alpha particles, which is a heavy, slow-moving helium nucleus, which when emitted releases an enormous amount of energy, but can only travel a tiny distance, just the thickness of a few cells. This is crucial. Targeted Alpha Therapy involves “gluing” an atom of At-211 to a molecule (such as an antibody) designed to specifically seek out and bind to cancer cells. At-211 travels through the body, ignoring healthy cells, and when it finds its target, it anchors to the tumor and releases its alpha particle. The result is a localized and devastating explosion of energy, which irreversibly destroys the DNA of the cancer cell. But since the particle cannot travel any further, the healthy cell next to it will not be affected, making this an almost perfect killer. Your problem. At first glance everything seems great, but… Why don’t we use it? The answer lies in its availability, since it is impossible to mine astatine, since with a life of 7.2 hours the clock is running against it. The only way to obtain it is to create it artificially in a cyclotron, a particle accelerator. The process basically involves firing a beam of alpha particles at a Bismuth-209 target. Now the advance that has been achieved is to create a fully automated system to produce and ship the AT-211 as quickly as possible so that it can be used. In Europe. With this advance, which has been made in Texas, processing time is reduced and the safety of technicians who do not have to handle this substance increases. And while Texas A&M resolves supply in the US, Europe is making a move. The project Accelerate.EUfunded by the European Union, was launched at the end of 2024 with a clear objective: to create a robust and sustainable manufacturing and treatment infrastructure for At-211 throughout Europe. The project focuses on especially difficult-to-treat cancers, such as pancreas, breast and brain tumors (glioblastomas), demonstrating that this therapy is a global strategic priority. The future therefore lies in the possibility of using one isotope to illuminate the tumor and then using another to kill it, inaugurating authentic personalized nuclear medicine. Images | freepik In Xataka | The most unexpected treatment against cancer is LED light, and it is giving good results

The most unexpected treatment against cancer is LED light, and it is giving good results

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Currently there are many research groups that have a very clear objective: find a cancer treatment that is effective, specific and above all safe. Something that can be really complex because of everything that cancer hides behind it, but science continues to give us good news. The last one comes from the University of Texas and the University of Porto which have developed a technique based on tin oxide nanoflakes (SnOx) and LEDs that allows cancer cells to be destroyed with precision. The current problem. The therapy par excellence today in the fight against cancer, without a doubt It’s chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The first of these has numerous problems that have been tried to be corrected, such as low specificity, that is, it attacks both cancer cells like the healthy ones. And this ultimately produces many side effects that can cause you to not continue with the treatment. This makes the goal of science to seek specificity and for the treatment to attack only cancer cells. This is something that is being tried to achieve with immunotherapy and techniques like CAR-T which ultimately is part of personalized medicine for each patient and which offers a very specific selection of the type of cell to destroy. But science has not stopped here. The discovery. One of the techniques that appears to be promising is photothermal therapy (PTT). The concept in this case is quite simple to understand: inject nanomaterials into a tumor and then heat them using light. This logically causes a localized increase in temperature, which selectively destroys the cancer cells that have been marked before. The problem until now was materials and light. Many photothermal therapies require high-powered lasers, which are expensive and can damage surrounding tissue. Now, a team of researchers from the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Porto have found the key to changing the rules of the game. A secret ingredient. The team has developed a new photothermal agent called nanoflakes that are made of tin oxide. After all, they are tiny sheets with a thickness of less than 20 nanometers and what is really ingenious is how they were manufactured. The really ingenious thing is how they made them. They started from a cheap and abundant material such as tin disulfide, which ironically is useless for photothermal therapy. In this way, through a ‘green’ and scalable process called electrochemical exfoliation with oxidation, which only uses aqueous media, they managed to transform the inactive tin disulfide into tin oxide that was already ready to fight cancer. And the light came. Once this material was available, all that was left was to expose it to the LED irradiation low-cost that emit infrared light at 810 nm. In this case we are talking about radiation that is very safe and does not damage healthy skin as can occur with radiotherapy, and it is also extremely cheap and accessible to everyone (even developing countries). Results. To test the effectiveness, researchers have tested cells in culture. The first thing they saw was that this treatment had no effect on healthy cells, that is, it did not destroy them. But the best comes when applying it to cancer cells results in a great reduction in the different colonies. Specifically, in skin cancer there was a 92% reduction in the viability of tumor cells, while in colorectal cancer this percentage dropped to 50%, but still maintained good results. And all thanks to an increase in temperature from 37 °C to 50 °C in 30 minutes that killed cancer cells. The future. This study not only presents a more efficient material, but validates its use with safer and more economical light sources. The researchers themselves point to the potential of LED systems for applications such as skin cancer treatment, which could theoretically be self-administered at home. This would be a great advantage for patients and would reduce the burden on health systems, although there is still a lot of research ahead to see if this therapy can be viable in a range that will surely not be less than 10 years. Images | National Cancer Institute Logan Voss In Xataka | Colon cancers are increasing alarmingly among young people. We have a suspect: sedentary lifestyle

“Guided missiles” are revolutionizing cancer treatment. And they are already giving results

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Chemotherapy marked a great revolution in the treatment of different cancers despite its many problems in the nonspecificity of the ‘attack’ that caused healthy cells to also be affected by its effects. Although attempts have been made to increasingly specific chemotherapiesthe reality is that the next natural step in the evolution of the treatment It is immunotherapy, which is a field that continues to advance, giving us more and more joy in the fight against cancer. But there is a revolution that wants to go much further, and it is nothing more than taking all the good things that immunotherapy has with the high potency of chemotherapy. And this ‘cocktail’ has a name: immunoconjugates (ADC). The current problem. Traditional chemotherapies have been seen as a really aggressive treatment that generates a large number of side effects by attacking absolutely everything they encounter. This forces us to rethink the strategy. For this, it has been thought in immunotherapy Basically what it does is ‘wake up’ our natural defenses so that it can attack the tumor with its own tools. Something that It is personalized for each individual. by extracting, for example, their T lymphocytes to ‘reprogram’ them and make them fight against the tumor, which is nothing more than their own cells. But the next step requires this specificity with greater potency than the stimulated immune system can provide. And this forces us to look for new therapies that have a similar mechanism, although it goes further in the way of applying the drug to the target cells. And this is where we are in the fight against cancer. The goal of treatment. Precisely the future focuses on personalized treatments for each of the patients who have cancer in their body, without having to generalize with a drug for one type of tumor. This is achieved with treatments that are considered ‘remote-controlled missiles’ or ‘Trojan horses’ that promise greater specificity when attacking a tumor cell and leaving the body’s healthy cells ‘calm’. But always taking into account the particular characteristics of a person’s tumor. This is what is achieved with ADCs which are designed like a missile with lethal precision. Its mission is to deliver an explosive charge of chemotherapy into the tumor cell, largely ignoring healthy cells, and the results are promising in the early phases of research, demonstrating its great potential to cure more patients in the early stages. That’s how they work. The technology behind ADCs (Antibody-Drug Conjugates) is as elegant as it is powerful. It is made up of three key parts: The antibody that acts as the guidance system. A monoclonal antibody designed in a laboratory to search and fit like a key in a lock to specific proteins, a kind of “antennae” (receptors), which are found massively on the surface of tumor cells. And the point is that each tumor cell has different ‘antennas’ and that is why it is important to find the most suitable antibody. The payload, which we can assume is our ‘warhead’ which is a very powerful chemotherapy molecule and so toxic that it often cannot be administered in normal chemotherapy mode due to the large effects it has. So, here we are combining chemotherapy with immunotherapy. The linker. A mechanism that binds the antibody and the cargo so that it can travel ‘comfortably’ through the blood until it reaches its target tissue. The process is pure military strategy: the ADC travels through the body, the antibody detects its target (the cancer cell), anchors to it and the cell, deceived, absorbs it. Once inside, the linker breaks and releases the chemotherapy, annihilating the malignant cell from within and without affecting the ‘neighbors’. A before and after. At the congress of the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO 2025) without a doubt this treatment has been on the lips of many experts. And it is logical seeing the good results that have been reported in this regard. You just have to see a recent study published in the prestigious magazine New England Journal of Medicine that confirms that this ADC such as trastuzumab deruxtecan is more effective than conventional chemotherapy in cases of metastatic HER2+ breast cancer, showing improvements from 7 to almost 10 months without tumor progression. Another treatment, sacituzumab govitecan, also has shown important results before him triple negative breast cancerwhich is one of the most aggressive and could have the worst prognosis. The result is also very promising: an improvement in survival and quality of life. The hidden side. Like all cutting-edge technology, ADCs are not without challenges. They are not harmless. One of the geniuses behind these studies, the Spanish Javier Cortés pointed out to the side effects that could occur, mainly diarrhea and lowered defense. This made him have to point out that “in general, Trojan horses give a toxicity that, in relation to traditional chemotherapy, is usually somewhat better.” But there is also another front ahead: in some patients with this treatment the tumor continues to grow. The investigation now focuses on understanding it: The tumor cell receptors may mutate and are not the appropriate target, the chemo release mechanism within the cell may fail, or the tumor may simply be resistant to that particular chemo. The future. What is being targeted right now is the possibility of mixing ADCs with immunotherapy or even combining several ADCs with each other. But where things get more interesting is the possibility of loading these ‘Trojan horses’ with radioligands, that is, rradioactive dioisotopes to apply radiotherapy very selective on cancer cells. In this way, a wide range of possibilities open up for the treatment of cancer. Images | Angiola Harry National Cancer Institute In Xataka | Colon cancers are increasing alarmingly among young people. We have a suspect: sedentary lifestyle

A study has just correlated them with a higher risk of cancer

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When we plan to lose weight, one of the first things we do is declare war on carbohydrates in the diet, reducing them as much as possible. All of this is conditioned on many occasions by the ‘advice’ that is seen on social networks in blogs, and which may have severe conditions as it was collected. in a published article in Nature Microbiology which suggests that this type of diet may end up increasing the risk of suffering from colorectal cancer. The study. Researchers conditioned by the increase in the number of people who decide to give up carbohydrates Because they relate it to weight gain, he wanted to test what was happening in a series of mice. In this way, an investigation was created with three different diets: a normal diet, one low in carbohydrates and another Western-style diet with a large amount of fat and carbohydrates. The result. After exposing the mice to these conditions, they analyzed their microbiota discovering a particular strain of E. coli bacteria, which was producing a toxin that damaged DNA called colibactin. A toxin that, in combination with a diet low in carbohydrates and soluble fiber, promotes the growth of polyps in the colon, which may be the first step to cancer. As recognized by the researcher himself, Alberto Martín, professor of immunology at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine of the University of Toronto, at first it was thought that colorectal cancer was caused by a combination of different factors like diet or genetics. But now a door is opening that means that a specific diet can lead to our bacteria enhancing the appearance of cancer. Because. Researchers found that a diet deficient in fiber increases inflammation of the intestine and alters the microbial community that reside here, that offer us many benefits and about which we are beginning to know more and more. Specifically, they focused on E. Coli that produces colibactin as we have discussed before, but what is really important here is that the mice fed a low-carbohydrate diet had a thinner layer of mucus that separates the intestinal microbes from the epithelial cells of the colon. A priori, this mucus barrier that we have in the digestive system acts as a layer of protection that allows bacteria not to come into direct contact with epithelial cells. But if this shield is thinner due to this poor diet, more colibactin can reach the colon cells directly and act as an epigenetic mechanism that alters their structure and drives the deregulation of the factors that control their cell cycle. But the researchers wanted to go a little further, by analyzing the effects on mice that had genetic mutations in their cells in the pathway responsible for repair damage that occurs in DNA. In this case the effect was very clear: the repair of these damages was not favored. This means that all the failures that are generated daily in our cells are not repaired or that the cell simply cannot enter apoptosis (programmed cell death) through these pathways. Something that adds ‘papers’ to have a cancer cell that gets out of control. Lynch syndrome. A genetic health problem which makes the patient have a greater chance of suffering from certain types of cancer, including colorectal cancer. All this due to mutations in genes that repair DNA, such as MLH1 and MSH2, among others. In this way, if a carbohydrate-deficient diet is added to these people who already have a higher probability of suffering from colon cancer, the effect of colibactin will increase these probabilities. That is why the findings made by researchers suggest that people with Lynch syndrome who harbor these colibactin-producing bacteria should avoid stopping carbohydrates so as not to increase the risk. They even suggest that they can take specific antibiotics for these colibactin-producing bacteria to further reduce the risk. Probiotics. With taking antibiotics, I’m sure that on more than one occasion you have been recommended to take probiotics in order to maintain the intestinal microbiota before the treatment. In this case, research suggests that a strain of E. coli called Nissle that produces colibactin is found in these probiotics, which makes us ask many questions about its effect on cancer. In this way, his laboratory is investigating whether long-term use of this probiotic is safe for people with Lynch syndrome or for those who follow a low-carbohydrate diet. The antidote. Given all this, the question is obligatory: how can I avoid this if I have to consume few carbohydrates? To this end, the study has been able to see a correlation between the increase in soluble fiber in the diet with a decrease in the levels of colibactin-producing E. Coli. This is something that translates into less interaction with DNA repair mechanisms and therefore a lower probability of suffering from cancer. “We supplemented fiber and saw that it reduced the effects of the low-carbohydrate diet (…) Now we are trying to find out which sources of fiber are most beneficial,” says Bhupesh Thakur, postdoctoral fellow and lead author of the study. A treatment. The goal right now is to try to counteract the increased risk of cancer due to this bacterial toxin. To this end, the use of inulin is being investigated, which has been seen to reduce the amount of E. coli, which produces colibactin, and improves intestinal health in high-risk people. A treatment that, as it could not be otherwise, is focused on the fiber itself, which will become the best ally in these situations. Images | engin akyurt National Cancer Institute In Xataka | Intermittent fasting is the fad diet. At least among scientists who study its effects on the microbiome

In the last 20 years, colorectal cancer has doubled among young people and we didn’t know why. Now we have a track

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In the last 20 years, the incidence of colorectal cancer has doubled in young adults and that has fired all alarms. Above all, because while this type of tumor shoots, we have no idea why. Now, a study headed by Spanish researchers has found a suspect: it is called colibactin and a bacterial toxin produced by some strains of Escherichia coli. The colorectal epidemic. The term is “epidemic”, yes. As Manuel Anse explainedthe alarm jumped in the US in the late 2000s: while colorectal cancer decreased in people over 70, growth rates in children under 50 grew at a rate of 1.5%. In Europe, the data suggests that it has arrived to grow to the rhythm of 8% Between twenty -year -old. It was a huge public health problem. But, above all, it was a mystery. What could be behind all this? The first track. In 2020, a research team from the Netherlands discovered that certain strains of Escherichia coli They produced colibactin and that toxin could produce cancer mutations In the children’s DNA. It was an interesting, promising way; But there were too many conditional in the idea. Those conditionals are those who have tried to eliminate the investigation that It has just been published in Nature. What have they done? They have analyzed the DNA of almost a thousand tumors of this type of 11 different countries (and three continents). Not only that: they have examined varieties, typologies and demographic features. And what they have found is more than interesting. To begin with, there are two genetic brands related to the toxin in question that are 3.3 times more common in tumors of young people (compared to those of people over 70 years old). To continue, “they are especially prevalent in countries with a high incidence of colorectal cancer in young people.” What does this mean? “Mutational firms are a kind of historical record in the genome; they point out that exposure to colibactin in early stages of life promotes colorectal cancer of early appearance,” Ludmil Alexandrov explainedfrom the University of California in San Diego. Everything seems to indicate that the harmful effects of this toxin begin soon (in the first 10 years of life). That is, “if someone acquires one of these driving mutations at 10 years, decades could be advanced in the development of colorectal cancer and suffering from age 40 instead of 60, “explained Alexandrov. It is great news. No, it’s excellent news. Insufficient, preliminary and still precarious: but if we are clear, it is that to contain the epidemic we must understand where it comes from. And, for now, it seems that it comes from the modern world. “In the most industrialized countries there is an increase in cases of infection with this strain of Escherichia coliwhich leads us to think about changes in lifestyle “, Díaz Gay says in the country. How can we use it in our favor? We do not know, but we will discover it. Image | JC Gellidon | National Cancer Institute In Xataka | We have found a cure for more aggressive colon cancer: this is how the drug is referred to

The Chinese company Alibaba has an AI to detect pancreatic cancer. It is so good that the US has accelerated its approval

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The applications of the artificial intelligence (AI) They go far beyond what models such as Chatgpt, Deepseek or Dall-E offer us, among many others. These services are already part of the day -to -day life of many people, but AI is present in many other areas in which is already making a differencesuch as The design of new materialsthe development of drugs or medical diagnosis. The innovation in which we are about to investigate belongs to this last scenario of use. And it is that the Damo Academy, which is the branch dedicated to the investigation of the gigantic Chinese company Alibaba, has developed an AI tool that is capable of detecting in an early phase and in asymptomatic patients one of the types of cancer with the worst prognosis: that of pancreas. The figures of this disease are shocking. Is The seventh cause of cancer death globally even though the twelfth type of this most frequent evil. And survival after diagnosis, unfortunately, does not exceed 10%. The FDA is accelerating the approval of this Alibaba technology When the protagonist is the health of the people it is encouraging to verify that two superpowers faced with The virulence with which they are Currently USA and China are able to leave their differences aside. The first contact with AI developed by the Damo Academy to identify pancreas cancer in November 2023 thanks to an article published in the Medicine magazine Nature Medicine. Some treatments have taken between 10 and 12 years to be approved by the relevant agencies The approval of an innovation of these characteristics by the European Medicines Agency, known as EMA for its English denomination (European Medicines Agency), or the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) of the USA, requires investing a lot of time. Some treatments have taken between 10 and 12 years to be approved if we count the time elapsed from the moment the initial idea arose until it received the final blessing from these agencies. However, this alibaba presumably will be able to be used with patients in much less time. And is that, according to SCMPthe FDA has initiated the process of accelerated review and approval of Panda (Pancreatic Cancer Detection with Artificial Intelligence), which is what is the name of the model developed by Alibaba. This deep learning model It has been trained with computerized abdominal tomographies without contrast of 3,208 patients with pancreatic cancer. And, according to preliminary tests, it is 34.1% more sensitive than radiologists when identifying this disease. Alibaba has already used Panda to examine 40,000 people in a hospital in NOBO (China), and identified six cases of early pancreatic cancer. Two of them were overlooked by radiologists during routine exams. Image | MART PRODUCTION More information | Nature Medicine | SCMP In Xataka | We did not know why some superbacteria were resistant to antibiotics. This AI has found it in two days

We have just discovered that food can also affect the risk of developing lung cancer

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We know well that certain ways of life can affect our risk of suffering certain types of cancer. A clear case is that of the relationship between smoking and respiratory system tumors, especially lung. We also know that our diet It can affect to the probability that we develop cancers such as liver or colorectal. However, relationships can be somewhat more complex. Diet and lung cancer. A new study has linked The diet with the risk of lung cancer, a relationship that until now had remained, if it does not hide, at least in the shadow of other better known and explored connections. Adenocarcinoma and glycogen. The study focuses on the Pulmonary adenocarcinomaa tumor at the origin of 40% of cases of globally diagnosed lung cancer, explains the team responsible for the study. It is the cancer that causes more deaths in the United States, but it is also the most common lung cancer among people who have ever smoked. The new study focuses on glycogen accumulation. Glycogen is a polysaccharide, a sugar composed of simple sugars or monosaccharides, in this case a glucose chain. This sugar is used by our body as an energy reserve. The role of glycogen. The accumulations of Glycogen They had been observed in some types of cancers as well as in other diseases. Now, the team responsible for the new study, studied through computational and laboratory models how this complex sugar acts as “oncogenic metabolite.” As they explain, the greater the accumulation of the polysaccharide in cancer cells, greater and more dangerous will be tumor growth. In mice. The analysis in animal models (in mice) served to validate the theoretical results. The team found that, by feeding the mice with a diet that they catalog as “western”, capable of facilitating a greater presence of blood glycogen, cancer in the animals of the animals grew. In contrast, when glycogen levels fell, tumor growth was reduced. The details of the study were published In an article In the magazine Nature Metabolism. Diet and cancer risk. The team responsible for the study emphasizes that, although it is one of the first times (if not the first time) that lung cancer is linked to the diet, there are already numerous occasions when the diet has been put in the center of the strategies for cancer prevention. The diet is also an important pillar in treatments against this disease. “In the long term, our approach to cancer prevention should reflect the success of the antitabaco campaign (putting a greater emphasis on public awareness and policy -based strategies that promote healthier dietary choices as a fundamental component for disease prevention,” explained in a press release Ramon Sun, who led the team responsible for the study. Route for treatment. The good news is that the finding can open a way to improve treatments against this type of cancer. And we count at our disposal of drugs capable of controlling the level of glycogen in our body. Without the need to resort to pharmacological treatments, the study also allows highlighting the importance of a balanced diet in our health. In Xataka | Quantum computers begin to make a difference in a crucial field: the development of cancer vaccines Image | ROD Long

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