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Finding Connections The Washington Post Missed
February 4, 2024 (Issue #12)
James Alvarez
February 04, 2024
“There’s a big difference between 20 years of experience and the same year lived 20 times”
A Potential Link Between Gut Health and Colon Cancer
I wasn’t intending to but Colleen Cutcliffe, a scientist with a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Microbiology, sent me down a rabbit hole this week. Ever since I’ve learned how corrupted the media has become, specifically as it relates to pharmaceutical drugs and healthcare, it seems like I keep running into more examples.
A couple of weeks ago I shared this article, Colon cancer is rising in young Americans. It’s not clear why. from The Washington Post as an example of their intention of sowing doubt in the media. The article offers no concrete reasons and instead contradicts itself the moment it makes an assertion about a possible cause, and uses the exception to prove the rule.
From the article, “Although some doctors have pointed to bad diet, alcohol use and lack of exercise as factors, [Whitney] Jones notes that the actor Chadwick Boseman, the star of ‘Black Panther’ and other movies who died of colon cancer at 43, ‘was hardly a smoking, drinking guy. He was a young, vigorous person.’”
Sentences like this one are intended to lead readers to believe that it’s all up to chance, and Group 1 carcinogens like alcohol, processed food, and being sedentary “might” play a role. Whitney Jones, who’s quoted throughout the article, is a gastroenterologist who consults for Grail, a company using liquid biopsies to detect cancers in the early stages. Grail is not invested in preventing cancer.
When I tuned in to listen to Colleen Cutcliffe discuss gut health with Peter Attia on The Drive, I wasn’t expecting to find answers that The Washington Post’s had ignored. But I did.
Gut health, or more specifically, gut microbiome, is a topic that’s grown in popularity in recent years as research continues to find links between poor gut health and metabolic disease which can cause chronic illnesses such as diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and yes cancer. Scientists have focused on gut microbiome in part because of how modifiable it is.
Dr. Cutcliffe points out that the two main ways to modify your gut microbiome are through nutrition, consuming a diversity of foods, and avoiding antibiotics, which she describes as “setting off a nuclear bomb in your gut.” One of the most important nutrients for your digestive tract, which runs mouth to anus, is fiber.
Fiber, insoluble fiber in particular from fruits and vegetables, acts as a prebiotic, food that feeds the organisms that make up your gut microbiome. When fiber is processed in your gut it produces a short-chain fatty acid called butyrate. Butyrate contains anti-inflammatory properties and has been shown to act as a tumor suppressant in the colon. Consuming a low fiber diet, which generates low levels of butyrate in the intestinal tract and colon, leads to poor colon health and a higher incidence of colon cancer.
After hearing this I decided to go back and re-read the Washington Post article to see if there was any mention of butyrate or fiber and its connection to colon health. I thought surely if I could stumble upon the connection a journalist whose job it is to investigate the topic they’re covering would’ve found it also.
In the nearly 3,000 word article the word butyrate doesn’t appear at all. The words “fiber” and “microbiome” appear just once each, and the word “gut” appears twice. The closest they come to touching the science is in this sentence, “…systemic factors could be at work, such as changes in gut bacteria — the microbiome — according to medical experts.” [emphasis mine]
There is also no mention of the fact that 95 percent of Americans are consuming only half of the 25 – 30 grams of recommended fiber each day. Nor do they mention the fact that the average American now consumes 70 percent of their daily calories from ultra-processed foods that are stripped of fiber. Calling attention to these facts would mean calling to account the large food manufacturers that pay their bills.
It would also mean ruffling the feathers of the pharmaceutical and healthcare companies that sell drugs and treatments to cancer patients, and also sponsor their “journalism.” Without patients there is no profits.
To be sure, other factors could be, and likely are, impacting the rise in colon cancer diagnoses. But to avoid discussion of a very clear connection, one that can be improved through behavioral changes, is nothing short of criminal.
We’re living in one of the most unfortunate of times where the institutions we’re supposed to trust have been corrupted beyond recognition. Fortunately, we also live in an age where information and answers are available if we’re willing to invest the time to look for them, and question what we’re being told. Take everything you read or see with a grain of salt, because most of the time there’s an agenda you don’t yet know about.
Cheers.
James.
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