
Bacteria and Colon Cancer - aazaa
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/07/22/bacteria-and-colon-cancer
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totally
What causes one bacteria to flourish in the colon? Is it a lack of other
flora? Is it diet related?

Not to be crass, but I also kind of wonder what it smells like. Are there
scientists who study the smells of these biological systems? Seems like that
would be a high bandwidth way to gain insight into a gut.

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sjg007
Diet and what other organisms are in your gut. So things like probiotics,
antibiotics, etc can change it. C. diff has a funky unique smell and is an
opportunistic organism that takes over sometimes and the best treatment when
antibiotics fail is a fecal transplant!

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bitdotdash
Nice forward progress on the search for a preventative treatment. Also TIL bad
gum health can lead to colon cancer. So counter intuitive. _runs off to brush
teeth_

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majkinetor
Brushing and flossing does also damage your gums depending on the force and
utility. Thats worst then doing nothing because now bacteria can enter your
blood stream and hitch a ride to the other parts of the body.

Much better option is to not eat carbs which universally damage teath.

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ssijak
Yeah sure, carbs are the ultimate devil in todays hipster keto obsessed world.
There is just a slight problem that in short they were never a problem during
our history when you eat unprocessed whole foods.

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majkinetor
You are not thinking this right. The carb landscape changed quite a bit
compared to the time our teeth evolved:

\- we eat simple carbs a lot now

\- we selected fruit for generations based on sugar content

\- we eat carbs constantly, year after year

\- we ingest less of protective substances like Vitamin C

i.e. you can't just prefix a thing with 'hipster' and call it a day.

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specialist
\- we eat much less dietary fiber (generally)

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majkinetor
While that is true, its uncertain how dietary fiber would influence this.
Since bacteria can only digest it, it might be feeding the pathogen. It also
reduces the acid barrier so it makes stomach survivable.

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specialist
I'd like to know. Please share whatever you've learned.

FWIW I've lowered my LDL thru diet; less dairy and a lot more grains and
beans. And Dr Lustig says fiber blocks metabolism of fructose.

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majkinetor
> I'd like to know. Please share whatever you've learned.

Wouldn't we all :) If I share what I learned, we will be here a very long
time...

> FWIW I've lowered my LDL thru diet

Its entirely different context that has no relevance to the topic. Eating
fiber anywayz is akin to eating fat AFAIK as colon bacteria digest it into
short SFA.

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octaveguin
A useful keyword in this is Helicobacter pylori.

Apparently a huge percentage of people have it, especially in developing
countries but not limited to them, and it is known to cause a lot of problems
though there is debate about possible benefits of it.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicobacter_pylori](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicobacter_pylori)

There is a sort of cure for it involving proton pump inhibitors and
antibiotics. After which, your stomach feels a ton better and your probability
of stomach cancer likely decreased.

I had chronic stomach aches since I returned from a long traveling in
Thailand. Only recently did I apply this treatment. I've never had such great
stomach health.

This was self-diagnosed and treated. I know what many on hacker news thinks
about non-experts talking about these sorts of things in recent months. I
think that's absurd.

Help yourself because no one else is more invested in your health.

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lupinglade
Could you provide some info/links for this cure?

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octaveguin
There's actually a wiki article that lists the standard protocol that a lot of
research papers also say.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicobacter_pylori_eradicatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicobacter_pylori_eradication_protocols)

I went through the research papers on the subject and didn't find any
indication that one treatment listed in the table did a whole lot better than
another combination. Eradication rates seem to be between 70-95 percent
depending on the claim of the paper which seems to be in range of likely
errors with each paper.

The proton pump inhibitors are over the counter in the US but antibiotics are
not (though they are in many other countries). It's a shame that the US is so
restrictive here.

