Here again a new article from Nature and The Guardian about children cancer;
Translated from the electronic french magazine Destination Santé
https://destinationsanté.com

Colorectal cancer in young adults: E. Coli in question?
25 April 2025
According to a recent study, genetic mutations are more frequently found in patients who develop colorectal cancer before the age of 50. These mutations are characteristic of exposure from childhood to a toxin, colibactin, derived from the bacterium E. Coli, naturally found in the gut.

What if the dramatic increase in colorectal cancers in young people were related to a bacterium? This is suggested by an international study headed by the University of California, San Diego, United States.

While tobacco, overweight, and the consumption of ultra-processed foods, alcohol is often singled out by experts to explain this “epidemic,” this time a toxin is being blamed. Colibactin is produced by certain strains of the bacterium Escherichia Coli naturally present in the digestive tract. And, according to scientists, exposure to colibactin, which can alter DNA, could be responsible for increasing colorectal cancers.
Mutations three times more frequently observed in young patients

This study, the results of which were published in the journal Nature on 23 April, looked at the genomes of 981 patients with late- and early-stage colorectal cancer from 11 countries with different levels of risk of colorectal cancer. Genetic mutations, characteristic of colibactin, were 3.3 times more frequent in younger patients (especially in adults under 40 years of age) than in people diagnosed after 70 years of age.

These mutations were particularly widespread in countries where the incidence of colorectal cancer in young people is high. “These mutation profiles are a kind of genomic archive. They indicate that early exposure to colibactin is a determining factor in the early onset of disease,” said Ludmil Alexandrov, lead author of the study and professor at the Shu Chien-Gene Lay Department of Bioengineering and the Department of Cell and Molecular Medicine at UC San Diego, in a university statement.
Colorectal cancer, soon the leading cause of cancer death in young adults?

According to global health data, colorectal cancers are on the rise among young people in at least 27 countries. “It has an impact on the under-50s has almost doubled every decade over the past 20 years. If the current trend continues, colorectal cancer is expected to become the leading cause of cancer death in young adults by 2030,” the researchers write.

While these young patients often have no risk factors for colorectal cancer, the study’s original goal was to examine global trends to understand why some countries had much larger case increases than others. The presence of colibactin-related mutations, in early occurrences, was found to be a common denominator.
The cause-and-effect link to be elucidated

Researchers believe that when these mutations occur before the age of 10 – colibactin-producing bacteria silently colonising the child’s colon – they would initiate genetic modifications that would promote the appearance of colorectal cancer well before a tumour occurs. The study also showed that colibactin directly involved, in 15% of cases, the APC gene whose mutation directly promotes the development of colorectal cancer.

While the results of this study support this hypothesis, they do not establish a causal link between the genetic mutations induced by colibactin toxin and the development of colorectal cancer. Further research will need to be carried out to highlight this.

According to Ludmil Alexandrov, in the columns of the British daily The Guardian, toxin-induced mutations could help bacteria to overtake their competitors in the microbiota. “This type of microbial chemical warfare is quite common in the course of evolution: the production of a toxin helps shape the niche or suppress microbial competitors,” he explains.

30-40% of children in the United States and the United Kingdom are reported to have harmful E-straints in their intestines. Coli (colibitis producers). It is therefore also necessary to determine the origin of this exhibition.

Source: Nature, University of California.

Written by: Dorothée Duchemin – Edited by Vincent Roche

SO LET SAVE THE CHILDREN WITH WCG !