A new study indicated that exposure to bacterial toxins in the colon in childhood may be a reason for increasing colon and rectal cancer cases in younger patients.
After colon and rectal cancer was a disease affecting the elderly, cases of infection among young people increased in at least 27 countries. The rate of infection has doubled in adults under the age of 50 almost every contract over the past 20 years.
In an effort to discover the cause, the researchers analyzed 981 genes in the colon and rectal in patients who suffered early or late in 11 countries and their levels of risk of disease vary.
DNA mutations in colon cells known to be caused by a poison produced by the coli’s iceduronian bacteria, called Colibactein, were more common by 3.3 times in adults who had colon cancer before the age of 40 compared to those who were diagnosed with the disease after the age of 70.
Researchers in the Nature magazine stated that the patterns of mutations are believed to arise when children are exposed to cholebacin before the age of ten.
The patterns of mutations were especially common in countries that are witnessing an increase in premature injury.
“If a person has one of these mutations before he reaches ten years of age, he may accelerate the decades of the potential life of colon and rectal cancer, as he becomes at the age of 40 instead of 60,” Ludmil Alexanderov, the chief study researcher from the University of California at San Diego, said in a statement.
He added: “Every factor or environmental behavior leaves it an effect on our genetic formation. But we found that colipctin is one of those factors that it can. In this case, it seems that his genetic imprint is closely related to the colon and rectal cancer of the young men.”
The researchers found other fingerprints in colon and rectal cancers from specific countries, especially Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Russia and Thailand.
They say that this indicates that exposure to environmental factors may also contribute to the risk of cancer.
“It is possible that every country has different unknown causes … this can open the door to specific preventive strategies for each region,” said Marcus Diaz-Jai, co-author of the study from the Spanish National Cancer Research Center in Madrid.