You may find this a bit unbelievable but as recently as the 1960’s there was still a debate about whether smoking caused lung cancer. Many doctors puffed happily away, even in hospital corridors and advised the same of their patients. The smokiest room in any hospital was the Doctors’ Lounge.
The reason for this protracted idiocy was revealed years later in, “The Serpent on the Staff: The Unhealthy Politics of the American Medical Association” by Sun Times reporters Howard Wolinsky and Tim Brown. It seems the Medical Editor of the Journal of the AMA was receiving an ‘educational stipend’ from the tobacco industry in excess of $100K a year to quash any research papers linking cigarettes to illness.
You now might ask, “What do cigarettes have to do with my colon?”.
Well—as the 21st century moves along, it’s beginning to look as if ultra-processed food (UPF) may well become the cigarettes of our lives as a source of serious chronic illness. For the average child, up to 70% of his/her diet is UPF, an adult slightly less at 66%. Ultra-processed foods, I’m sure you know, are high in refined flour, sugar and fat and contain substances with little or no nutritional value, such as colorings, emulsifiers, artificial flavors, and sweeteners. Examples cover a wide range of products, from chips and hot dogs to prepackaged meals. Think of a Dunkin’ Donut accompanying a Chicago Dog and fries.
Our UPFs are such chemical swills that many countries ban them outright. The main villains are the food dyes, Yellow No. 5 and 6, Red No. 3 and 40 and preservative BHA and BHT. So, the French children will never experience the joys of Fruit Loops, Skittles, Little Debbie Swiss Rolls, Twinkies, Pop Tarts or Lucky Charms.
And now new data is here about the increase of colon cancer among younger people, 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, groups normally not included in routine health screenings for colon cancer. Further analysis of these patients showed no genetic predispositions, nothing environmental, no chronic conditions like Crohn’s Disease or ulcerative colitis.
What all these patients had in common was their diets had been heavily weighted with UPFs since early childhood and remained that way throughout their lives.
Diets high in ultra-processed foods produce a state of chronic low-level inflammation along your entire intestinal lining (a/k/a “leaky gut”) and alterations in your gut microbiome, each of which is a mechanism implicated in cancer development. What we eat affects how your cells grow, how your immune systems function and how your gut bacteria – which help regulate inflammation and immunity – behave. Emulsifiers, preservatives, and artificial sweeteners commonly found in ultra-processed foods have been shown in animal studies to promote intestinal inflammation and tumor growth. Meanwhile, the lack of fiber and protective phytochemicals (health-promoting compounds found in plants) in these foods alter your gut microbiome needed for your body to function optimally.
And not surprisingly, in the face of these revelations, the food industry is fighting back! Just like the tobacco industry did in the 1950’s, the food people are “questioning the science”, “checking the data”, and righteously proclaiming that their products are tasty and delicious “fun”. And they’ve got teams of attorneys preparing for the inevitable lawsuits (“Your M&Ms gave me colon cancer”).
In sum, colon cancer in a young person is an unfortunate diagnosis because by the time it is diagnosed it has frequently metastasized (spread). Prevention is the byword.
If you need help creating a rich balanced eating program, good for your microbiome, high in antioxidants, yet compatible with your jet setting lifestyle, schedule with our nutritionist, Olivia Darrow.
Be well,
David Edelberg, MD