What eating yogurt does to your colon cancer risks

Yogurt is my go-to food for a filling breakfast or a healthy snack.

And I’m not talking about those fruit-flavored yogurts full of sugar. For me, it’s plain Greek yogurt – thick, creamy, and even better when mixed with a teaspoon of honey.

Yogurt is packed with probiotics such as Bifidobacterium animalis that help keep the gut in tip-top shape. When the gut is healthy, your digestion, mood and cognition are supported.

And on top of that, you can worry less about your risk for obesity, diabetes, and colon cancer.

Bacteria in yogurt, including Bifidobacterium, alter the gut microbiome in positive ways.

Here’s some new research that proves just how powerful yogurt can be in slashing your risk for one of the most lethal types of colon cancer.

Eating yogurt can make colon cancer less deadly

Dr. Shuji Ogino, along with a team of researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and Harvard’s H.T. Chan School of Public Health, call themselves “team OPTIMISTICC.”

They conducted a study using data from two well-known prospective cohort studies: the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (HPFS). These studies have followed more than 100,000 female registered nurses since 1976 and 51,000 male health professionals since 1986, respectively.

Participants in each study answered repeated questionnaires about their lifestyle choices, including questions about their average daily intake of plain and flavored yogurt and other dairy products. They also answered questions about their disease history, if any.

The researchers also assessed tissue samples for participants with confirmed cases of colorectal cancer, measuring the amount of Bifidobacterium DNA in tumor tissue.

For participants with confirmed cases of colorectal cancer, the researchers assessed tissue samples, measuring the amount of Bifidobacterium (B. bifidum) DNA in tumor tissue.

Information on Bifidobacterium content was available in 1,121 colorectal cancer cases. Among those, 346 cases (31%) were Bifidobacterium-positive, and 775 cases (69%) were Bifidobacterium-negative.

The researchers didn’t observe a significant association between long-term yogurt intake and overall colorectal cancer incidence, but they did see an association in Bifidobacterium-positive tumors, with a 20 percent lower rate of incidence for participants who consumed two or more servings of yogurt a week.

Specifically, this lower rate was driven by a lower incidence of Bifidobacterium-positive proximal colon cancer — a type of colorectal cancer that occurs in the right side of the colon.

Studies have found that patients with proximal colon cancer have worse survival outcomes than patients with distal cancers (on the left side of the colon).

“It has long been believed that yogurt and other fermented milk products are beneficial for gastrointestinal health,” said co-senior author Tomotaka Ugai, MD, PhD, of the Department of Pathology at the Brigham and the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Our new findings suggest that this protective effect may be specific for Bifidobacterium-positive tumors.”

In other words, even if they did get colon cancer, the people who ate yogurt twice a week were less likely to get the more deadly type.

Supporting your gut with Bifidobacterium

If you’re a yogurt lover like me, you may get a regular supply of Bifidobacterium — and hopefully have for years.

But if you don’t like yogurt, you may not be out of luck…

Fermented foods have a long history and a lot of science behind their disease-fighting benefits, and yogurt isn’t your only choice.

Other fermented foods that should contain Bifidobacterium include:

• Sauerkraut
• Kefit
• Kombucha
• Kimchi
• Natto
• Fermented cheeses
• Cottage cheese
• Buttermilk
• Miso
• Tempeh
• Pickled cucumber
• Olives
• Apple cider vinegar
• Acidophilus milk
• Kvass

A probiotic supplement is another option. And prebiotics, especially inulin type fructans (ITF) and arabinoxylan-oligosaccharides (AXOS), can be consumed to increase the number of Bifidobacterium in the colon.

Sources:

Long-term yogurt consumption tied to decreased incidence of certain types of colorectal cancer — Science Daily

Long-term yogurt intake and colorectal cancer incidence subclassified by Bifidobacterium abundance in tumor — Gut Microbes