New Study Explains Why Junk Food Causes Bowel Cancer

Rebecca Lewis March 04, 2016

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It is a common knowledge that eating junk food may cause bowel cancer. But the question is: WHY? According to new research, fatty food causes cells in the gut to mutate. Researchers say consumption of junk food drives a population boom of intestinal stem cells, resulting to tumours.

It also generates a pool of other cells that behave like stem cells which can then reproduce themselves indefinitely.

According to the researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, intestinal stem cells, which last a lifetime, are the cells most likely to accumulate the mutations that give rise to colon cancer.

’Not only does the high-fat diet change the biology of stem cells, it also changes the biology of non-stem-cell populations, which collectively leads to an increase in tumour formation.’ said Assistant professor of biology Omer Yilmaz. ’Under a high-fat diet, these non-stem cells acquire the properties of stem cells so that when they are transformed they become tumorigenic.’

Normally, intestinal stem cells are surrounded by support or ’niche’ cells, which regulate stem cell activity and tell them when to generate stem cells or differentiated cells.

Researchers also found another population known as progenitor cells - differentiated daughter cells of stem cells - started to behave like stem cells.

’This is really important because it’s known that stem cells are often the cells in the intestine that acquire the mutations that go on to give rise to tumours.’ said Prof Yilmaz.

 His team also identified a nutrient-sensing pathway that is hyper-activated by the high-fat diet. The fatty acid sensor known as PPAR-delta responds to high levels of fat by turning on a metabolic process that enables cells to burn fat as an energy source instead of their usual carbohydrates and sugars.

 

The study was published in the journal Nature. In the future, the researchers hope to identify possible cancer drug targets for tumours that arise in obesity.

 

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Why junk food causes bowel cancer: Fatty foods drive ’boom in cells which can later turn into tumours’