A recent study conducted by researchers at the Baylor School of Medicine has identified a connection between dietary habits and cancer risk. The findings have been deemed significant by the research team.
Lanlan Shen, MD, PhD at Baylor College of Medicine, said, "Understanding this link between our meals and how our genes work is a big deal". She further added, "It’s like finding a missing piece of a puzzle we’re getting closer to solving about how to keep our bodies healthy."
The study, published in the Cancer Research Communications journal, examined the effects of dietary folate on colon cancer in animals. The research team discovered that animals administered with folate exhibited more tumors, larger tumors, and had shorter lifespans compared to those not given folate. Furthermore, the tumors in animals with folate displayed an immune cell invasion known as tumor-associated macrophages, which act as immunosuppressants.
Shen elaborated on these findings: "Importantly, we observed substantially increased epigenetic methylation of gene p16 – a gene involved in colon cancer development – in animals on the supplemented diet compared to controls. These findings illuminate a direct link between dietary folate and accelerated tumor development in the colon," according to a news release from the Baylor College of Medicine.
The study also provided crucial insights into the field of epigenetics. Shen explained: "In this study we show a mechanistic pathway from diet to colon cancer in an animal model. We investigated whether this pathway involved epigenetics, a system of bookmarking DNA that determines which genes will or will not be expressed in a cell. Epigenetics is one way cells can control the activities of their genes without altering the DNA sequence and is closely linked to the environment," according to another news release from Baylor College.
Colon cancer ranks as the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. The implications of this study raise concerns about folate food fortification and its potential contribution to the high number of colon cancer deaths. While epigenetics has suggested the impact of food on cancer, this study appears to establish a solid correlation, according to a news release from the Baylor College of Medicine.
