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More people under the age of 50 develop colon cancer.
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James Kinros, a colon cancer surgeon, said changes in gut microbes can be a factor.
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Following a vegetarian diet is one of the ways Kinros is trying to reduce the risk of colon cancer.
Colon cancer odds in people under the age of 50 are increasing. James Kinros, a GU surgeon who examines how the gut microbiome affects the risk of our illness, believes that an “internal climate crisis” among people in Western countries can be partly guilty.
But “the gift of gut microbiome is that you can change it,” Kinros said, referring to trillion germs that inhabit our digestive system and which studies suggest that they have a widespread effect on our health. “This is an ecosystem you can adapt,” the Imperial College London researcher told Business Insider.
To reduce its own risk of developing colon cancer, the second deadly form of cancer in the United States, Kinross follows nutritional principles, including eating a vegetarian diet. However, as BI reports, a person’s diet is only one piece of puzzle when it comes to risk of colon cancer.
It is believed that environmental factors such as ultra-processed foods, the use of antibiotics that kill intestinal bacteria, microplastics and limited exposure to nature have made our gut microbiomes less diverse, he said. This means that it is less healthy and resistant.
He gave the example of a child born of a C-section, which means the leakage of germs that would be transmitted through the birth channel, to a mom whose gut microbiome is exhausted by antibiotics and feeds on a diet with ultra-processed foods, he said.
“You see the loss of generations in our inner ecology, which is struck with a series of environmental hits that it simply cannot adapt to,” Kinros said.
The consequence is “very unhappy microbiome”, which produces harmful molecules and toxins that affect the risk of colon cancer, he said.
Kinros shared how he eats to reduce the risk of colon cancer.
Eat 30 grams of fiber per day
“What I really want in my gut is the variety,” Kinros said, “and the way you get is like having a really good diet that is really high in fiber.”
Fiber is found in plant foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes and whole grains and studies suggest that a variety of gut microbiome is related to a number of health benefits, such as a strong immune system.
Kinross aims to eat 30 grams of dietary fiber a day, as recommended by the Food and Drug Administration. He tries to “eat the rainbow”, ensuring that his plate is full of plant foods of very different color and therefore nutrients.
Follow a vegetarian diet
Studies have found a strong link between processed nutrition and red meat and the risk of colon cancer, so Kinross is trying to follow a vegetarian diet as much as possible.
A 2020 study, published in the International Epidemiology Journal, examines data from about 500,000 people for a seven -year period to assess whether eating meat has affected the risk of cancer. He found that those who ate 79 grams of red or processed meat, or the equivalent of three slices of delicacies a day, had a 32% higher risk of colon cancer than those who ate under 11 grams.
In 2015, the International Cancer Research Agency, the World Health Organization Cancer Research Agency, classified processed meat as a “definite” cause of cancer, and red meat as a “probable” cause.
“It is not necessary to believe that we should all be vegetarian, but I think consumption of meat is a large part of our problem,” he said, citing increasing cases of colon cancer.
Eat fermented foods every day
Fermented foods, such as sauerkraut, kefir and kombucha, contain probiotics, the “good” bacteria that live in the intestine.
Kinross eats serving them daily as studies suggest that they can improve the variety of bowel microbiome. A 2021 study from the University of Stanford found that people who have eaten a high-fermented food diet for 10 weeks have even more diverse microbiomes than those who have eaten a high-fiber diet.
Its holists are bread with acidic liquid and kimchi, Korean fermented cabbage.
“My daughter is completely obsessed with Kimchi. She makes loads of him. So we always have a big bucket of him in our house,” he said.
“They should be part of your ordinary food consumption, otherwise the germs simply do not cultivate and transplant in your gut,” he said.
Read the original Business Insider article