The biggest mystery surrounding colon cancer has finally been answered, as more than 40 percent of people were diagnosed early, all thanks to a virus that does not occur in healthy people.
The researcher who brought this discovery to light in a renowned journal is Dr. Fleming Damgaard.
The medical doctor and PhD in the Department of Clinical Microbiology at Odense University Hospital and the University of Southern Denmark explains how his team responded to this long-standing paradox.
He began by saying, “It has been a paradox that we repeatedly find the same bacteria in association with colorectal cancer, while at the same time it is a completely normal part of the gut in healthy people.”
But now the team has “discovered a virus that has not been described before and that appears to be closely related to the bacteria found in colorectal cancer patients.”
However, what the expert made clear in his talk is that “it’s not just the bacteria that seems interesting. It’s the bacteria interacting with the virus that comes with it. We don’t yet know whether the virus is a contributing cause, or whether it’s just a sign that something else has changed in the gut,
“It was in our Danish material that we first detected a signal. This gave us a solid hypothesis, which we were able to test in a larger dataset,” says Fleming.
Approximately 877 individuals across Europe, the United States, and Asia were selected to ensure that the findings would be similar across all continents.
By the end of it, they found stability, and even realized that people with colorectal cancer were almost twice as likely to carry these viruses inside their intestine.
For those who don’t know, approximately 80% of cases of colorectal cancer are found to be the result of environmental factors, including microorganisms in the gut. science daily Claim.
As Dr. Fleming explains, “The number and diversity of bacteria in the gut is enormous. Previously, it was like finding a needle in a haystack. Instead, we investigated whether something inside the bacteria – namely viruses – could help explain the differences.”
However, he made one thing clear and that is, “We do not yet know why the virus exists, but we are investigating whether it contributes to the development of colorectal cancer.”
For now, however, in the short term “we can investigate whether the virus can be used to identify individuals at increased risk,” he said before concluding.
It is pertinent to mention that about 40 percent of cancer cases can be identified by their present findings.
