Chronic Inflammation and Colon Health
[Music]
[Applause]
do you know what a colostomy bag is
it’s a plastic bag that’s attached to a
hole
that the doctors have inserted into our
abdomen
and we redirect your poop into that bag
because your colon has been ravaged by
cancer
and if we do that it means you’re lucky
because you’re going to live
now i recommend avoiding it if you can
and i recommend avoiding the bellyaches
the constipation
the diarrhea the rectal bleeding
and all the other crappy things that
come with colorectal cancer and its
treatment
so today i’m going to tell you the steps
that you can take
to avoid getting colorectal cancer
especially
at a young age my name is lauren haaseth
i’m the director of the center for colon
cancer research here
at the university of south carolina
now colorectal cancer is the third
leading cause
of cancer death globally so it’s
important
now the good news is for people over 50
years old
old folks like myself colorectal cancer
rates are decreasing
the bad news is for young
adults even very young adults colorectal
cancer rates are
increasing they’ve been increasing for
the last 40 years the lot rises
global and the contributing factors
probably take
hold during childhood so today i’m going
to tell you the steps that you
and your children can take to avoid
getting colorectal cancer
early in life and then i’ll explain to
you the science behind
why these steps
work so meet your colon
your colon’s job is to finish processing
the food
remove the liquid that’s left over and
move it out of your body as poop
inside your colon is your microbiome now
your microbiome
are a bunch of bacteria we’ll just call
them bugs
some are good bugs some are bad bugs but
there’s
trillions literally trillions of these
bugs that govern the health of your
colon
think of them as guardians of your colon
now the good bugs they have long names
like lactobacillus and bifidobacterium
well these bugs help process your food
they regulate your immune system and
they tame
inflammation now the bad bugs
these also have long names like fuso
bacterium
now when there’s a buildup of these bad
bugs this causes
dysbiosis and dysbiosis drives
inflammation and chronic inflammation in
your colon is
really bad over the course of
years if chronic inflammation isn’t
tamed
it will likely lead to colorectal cancer
so the steps i’m going to highlight
today keep your microbiome healthy
tames inflammation and gives you the
best chance
possible avoiding colorectal cancer
so step one more than anything else
across the globe
we have to change the way we eat in the
mid-1900s
the standard american diet began to
change not in healthy ways
this is when we saw the introduction of
processed foods
more fried foods sweets more
artificially
colored foods with a high calorie
content and a low
nutrient value i think fast foods
pre-made box lunches
chips soft drinks now in the latter part
of the century
we saw this the spread of this diet
across the globe think
mcdonald’s for example is in over a
hundred countries
so this food is damaging our colons
across the globe and we’ve actually
parsed out the data to prove it
our lab has fed mice a standard american
diet
and these mice lo and behold get
dysbiosis
they get inflammation and yes they got
colon cancer
now even more convincing was a study
done on
human volunteers of african descent
these were volunteers from the usa and
south
africa and all they did was switch diets
for two weeks
the usa cohort ate the healthy diet from
south africa
the south african cohort ate the
standard american diet
and guess what happened yup
after only two weeks of consuming the
healthy diet from south africa
dysbiosis got better inflammation got
less and there are higher amounts of
butyrate which is a good guy it
tames inflammation after only two weeks
of consuming the standard american diet
the south african cohort had worse
dysbiosis
and worse inflammation so compelling is
the entirety of the data
we now call our standard american diet
by its acronym s a
d literally literally a sad
diet a sad diet really like
our standard american diet is a sad diet
now
so what should we be eating what foods
will
increase the amount of good bugs
decrease the amount of bad bugs
and thereby tame our colon inflammation
well we should be eating a plant-based
diet
or beans some meat more olive oil and
saturated fats more fruits
more vegetables and it’s especially
helpful
to consume foods called prebiotics now
prebiotics
are a part of the plant-based diet
they are the oats they are the barley
they are the legumes
they’re the apples they’re the bananas
they’re the asparagus
now the good bugs in our colon consume
these prebiotics and spit out
anti-inflammatory
metabolites in short
these foods help our colon fight the
good fight
now we can also help our microbiome by
consuming
probiotics now prebiotics feed
the good bugs in your microbiome the
probiotics
are the good bugs in our microbiome the
most commonly found
probiotic in the usa is yogurt so these
foods
help build up the good bugs fight off
the bad bugs and tame
inflammation in your colon and if you
can’t imagine
adding any of these foods to your daily
diet
you can walk down to your local drug
store and buy them as
supplements so what else can we do
to lower our risk of colorectal cancer
when we’re young
well you’re going to have to get off
your butts and i’ll tell you why
you might not believe this but recent
studies have shown
that the longer you watch tv
the higher your risk of colorectal
cancer the most shocking study
found that women who watch over two
hours of tv
per day have a 70 percent
increased risk of colorectal cancer 70
percent
now it’s not the tv watching per se
that gives you the colorectal cancer
it’s lounging around it’s a sedentary
behavior
that’s going to increase dysbiosis and
inflammation
and tv watching isn’t the only sedentary
behavior that’s become more popular in
recent years
more of us spend time at desk jobs than
ever before
we spend more time looking at our phones
and
all of us know somebody who spends
hours on a weekend binge watching
netflix
or playing video games so how do we fix
us
well i won’t tell you to quit
your desk job and find one that requires
you to stand all day
but i will join the ranks of advocating
for hourly office laps or walking
meetings
now i won’t tell you to quit watching tv
but i will tell you it’s better to watch
tv while
riding a stationary bike or walking on a
treadmill
so get your steps in every day make time
for exercise
and your colon will thank you for it
so over the last 40 years we’ve seen a
rise
in factors that we must combat
to maintain colon health so far
we’ve gone through a standard american
diet and
increased sedentary behavior but there’s
a third factor one that’s
not so visibly obvious but just as
insidious as the others
and that’s stress stress has been
increasing for the last 40 years
the rise is global and perhaps saddest
of all
stress has been increasing dramatically
in our children now scientifically
more and more studies are showing that
different
causes of stress lead to dysbiosis
and we already know that dysbiosis
drives inflammation
what’s even worse is long-term stress
common amongst all
ages can lead to a slow burning of your
colon
it’s a process called inflammation and
it feels as good as it sounds
so it’d be easy for me to vaguely tell
you to manage your stress levels but
that really wouldn’t be
tangibly helpful to you
and while there’s a hundreds of causes
of stress and i couldn’t imagine
going through them all in the little
time that we have
i will mention a few things that you can
do
to prevent stressors that have been
scientifically proven
to lead to dysbiosis number one
is get your sleep adults need eight
hours of sleep
children ten hours of sleep set a
regular sleep schedule
set the room temperature do everything
that you can do
to get a good night’s sleep every night
number two is create predictability know
what’s in your short-term
future and prepare for it
before you go to bed at night set out
your clothes
pack your lunch to-do lists are great
check them off imagine like a to-do list
for colon health that’d be cool prepare
for things that upset you every day
if you’re an angry driver understand
there will always be idiots on the road
accept that fact let it go and your
colon will thank you
so all these things seem a bit hyper
vigilant
but they’re actually simple and they’ll
knock a bunch of stress off your
shoulders
so number three is social support
community
family a happy marriage all
will reduce your stress levels
exceptionally stressful moments will
always
arrive but honestly they’ll always
recede
managing your ongoing stress is a surest
way
of preventing inflammation and it’s key
to colorectal
health now we don’t
know yet everything there is to know
about colorectal cancer but what we do
know
is diet exercise and stress
are important for colon health and key
to preventing colorectal cancer
we’re also finding out that dysbiosis
can pass
from parent to offspring so for your
own sake and your future family’s sake
i urge you to eat well
stress less and move more thank you
[Applause]