Antibiotics: A Pathway To Colon Cancer

As I continuously repeat in my posts, antibiotics destroy the ecosystem of the gut. This is repeatedly demonstrated by research. By destroying the ecosystem, they also reduce the diversity of the intestinal flora/bacteria. Studies have shown that a 5-day or 7-day course of antibiotics will wipe out the 100 trillion organisms/bacteria of the gut, leaving only a few antibiotic resistant strains. These antibiotic resistant strains will be the only ones present in the gut for up to a year and the composition of the intestinal bacteria will be permanently altered. As bacteria re-populate the gut, they will acquire antibiotic resistance from the few strains that survived the antibiotics. With altered intestinal flora, the entire function of the intestinal tract becomes altered and disease processes begin. Antibiotics have been associated with diabetes, obesity, inflammation, asthma, allergies, rapid aging, IBS, IBD, cancers, and life-threatening colitis. By altering the intestinal flora, every organ, tissue, and cell in the body becomes affected. This recent study, published in Science Daily, once again points out the connection of antibiotics to colon cancer and the chain of events that takes place - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120816141527.htm.

"What if a key factor ultimately behind a cancer was not a genetic defect but ecological?

Ecologists have long known that when some major change disturbs an environment in some way, ecosystem structure is likely to change dramatically. Further, this shift in interconnected species' diversity, abundances, and relationships can in turn have a transforming effect on health of the whole landscape -- causing a rich woodland or grassland to become permanently degraded, for example -- as the ecosystem becomes unstable and then breaks down the environment.

For this reason, it should come as no surprise that a significant disturbance in the human body can profoundly alter the makeup of otherwise stable microbial communities co-existing within it and that changes in the internal ecology known as the human microbiome can result in unexpected and drastic consequences for human health.

A report published in the August 16 online edition of the journal Science gives evidence for such a chain reaction. It has long been known that gut inflammation is a risk factor for cancer. The new study suggests that this may be in part because inflammation disturbs gut ecosystems leading to conditions that allow pathogens to invade the gut. These pathogens may damage host cells increasing the risk of the development of colorectal cancer.

"A shift in the microbial community is associated with inflammation," Fodor noted. "It is interesting that the microbial community is actually changing with the disease state, which indicates that it is either responding to or contributing to the disease state."

Despite the overall drop in diversity, the team found that the presence of E. coli was markedly increased (by a factor of 100) by inflammation.

The researchers were curious whether or not they could find evidence for a cause-and-effect relationship between E. coli and colorectal cancer. To probe this, the team raised sterile (bacteria-free) IL10-/- mice and then inoculated each mouse with either an E. coli variant (called NC101) or Enterococcus faecalis, another common gut bacterium. Both groups of inflammation-prone mice developed severe gut inflammation (colitis), but, significantly, 80 percent of the E. coli infected mice also developed colorectal cancer, while the Enterococcus faecalis inoculated mice remained cancer-free."