The Microbiome-Cancer Connection

Cancer is, of course, something we all fear, a collection of diseases that strike us down unexpectedly and often put us at the mercy of a deeply flawed and exploitative medical system. So it can help to identify the factors that leads us down this path and take action to minimize such risks. We don’t smoke cigarettes, we try to consume organic foods whenever possible to minimize the carcinogenic effects of herbicides and pesticides, we avoid getting sunburned—advice you are all likely familiar with. 

But the microbiome is proving to be an exceptionally powerful factor in causing or preventing cancer, in some unexpected ways. For instance, it has become clear that many instances of colon cancer get their start in the mouth. It is also becoming clear that numerous forms of cancer, from breast cancer to prostate cancer, originate with the composition of microbes in the gastrointestinal tract. It is the one common thread among many forms of cancer. This single insight has the potential to give you enormous control over your lifetime risk for these diseases.

So, in this episode of Defiant Health, let’s consider these cancer-related issues of the microbiome. It is, admittedly, a conversation that is just getting started with many more lessons to learn. But gain an awareness of these microbiome-related issues and you can take concrete steps to address these risks. 

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Transcript

William Davis, MD: 0:05

Cancer is, of course, something we all fear, a collection of diseases that strike us down unexpectedly and often put us at the mercy of a deeply flawed and exploitative medical system. So it can help to identify the factors that lead us down this path and take action to minimize such risks. We don't smoke cigarettes, of course. We try to consume organic foods whenever possible to minimize the carcinogenic effects of herbicides and pesticides. We avoid getting sunburned advice you're all likely familiar with. But the microbiome is proven to be an exceptionally powerful factor in causing and preventing cancer in some unexpected ways. For instance, it has become clear that many instances of colon cancer get their start in the mouth. It's also becoming clear that numerous forms of cancer, from breast cancer to prostate cancer, originate with the composition of microbes in the gastrointestinal tract. It's the one common thread among many forms of cancer. This single insight alone has the potential to give you enormous control over your lifetime risk for these diseases. So in this episode of Define Health, let's consider these cancer-related issues of the microbiome. It is, admitted, admittedly, a conversation that is just getting started, with many more lessons to learn, but gain an awareness of these microbiome-related issues and you can take concrete steps to address these risks and later in the podcast I'd like to tell you about Define Health's sponsors Paleo Valley, our preferred provider of many excellent organic and grass-fed food products, and BioDequest, my number one choice for probiotics that are scientifically formulated, unlike most of the other commercial probiotic products available today. Of course, numerous causes of cancer have been identified over the years. Some causes are environmental, some are dietary, others involve toxic exposures or hormonal disruptions, and there are also genetic and epigenetic disruptions that can lead to changes that lead to a formation of a cancer. But we need to add the microbiome to the list, that is, the collection of microbes in various parts of the body, but especially the gastrointestinal microbiome and the oral microbiome, and that's because these areas are proven to be the seeds or the source of microbes and their byproducts that are involved in cancer causation. Also, the unique thing about the microbiome is that the emerging science tells us that various microbial factors cause not just one or two or three kinds of cancers, but dozens of different cancers, and that not addressing these microbial factors means that you cannot hope for complete control over cancer risk.

William Davis, MD: 3:01

It's also appearing that the microbiome has a number of ways in which it can contribute to causing or propagating a cancer. It could be a direct or local effect. It could be an inflammatory effect. It could be through endotoxemia, that is, the release of toxins from bacteria that enter the bloodstream and then gain access to various organs. It could be direct invasion of a microbe, that is, the microbe actually enters a tissue like breast or prostate or pancreas and do its damage. That way it could also achieve changes that lead to cancer by disrupting the immune response, often turning off your protective immune response against an emerging cancer, often turning off your protective immune response against an emerging cancer. And microbes can also be responsible for damaging your DNA, actually introducing changes into your genetic code or the epigenetics that control expression of your genes. That can then in turn lead to cancer and allow its propagation.

William Davis, MD: 3:59

A very important collection of observations have come from some studies performed recently in which many tumors were actually taken out of people patients resected, that is, and then studied and looked at for the presence of microbes and also for the presence of bacterial toxins. Lo and behold, tumors are filled with microbes and with their toxins. So breast, for instance, breast tissue that's been examined after removal includes microbes like Streptococcus infantis and Fusobacterium nucleatum. Fusobacterium nucleotide is an oral microbe. So in this case, presumptively, there's.

William Davis, MD: 4:39

One of the causes of breast cancer is a microbe from the mouth. Examination of pancreatic cancer has revealed the presence of fecal microbes such as enterobacter, klebsiella and citrobacter. Now how did fecal microbes get into the pancreas? Because fecal microbes live, or are supposed to live, about 24 feet down from the pancreas. There's no direct connection between the colon, where fecal microbes are supposed to live, and the pancreas. The pancreas is 24 feet up higher. So we have to presume that fecal microbes somehow gain access, likely by ascending into the small intestine. Colon cancer contains two mouth microbes Fusobacterium nucleatum and Porphyromonas gingivalis, two microbes that originate in the mouth and likely gain access either through the bloodstream or by swallowing. There's also E coli and Bacteroides fragilis, two stool microbes. But no surprise, that's where they're supposed to be. But when E coli and certain strains of Bacteroides fragilis proliferate, they can contribute to change that lead to a cancer.

William Davis, MD: 5:45

Another interesting observation made through recent studies of tumors taken out of patients is that they also contain lipopolysaccharide endotoxin. So if we take those fecal microbes, they're also called gram-negative because they stay in a certain way when you try to look at them under a microscope. They're also called proteobacteria or enterobacteriaceae. These are more umbrella-type terms for fecalcal microbes. These fecal microbes have a toxin in their cell wall called lipopolysaccharide endotoxin, or lps endotoxin for short. When these microbes die let's say in the colon they die, they release that endotoxin into the intestines, which then can gain access into your bloodstream. Now this is especially true when you have small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, that is, when you have fecal microbes that have proliferated in the colon, where they belong, but then ascended into the small intestine, where they don't belong. The small intestine is by design very permeable because that's where you're supposed to absorb such things as amino acids and fatty acids and vitamins and minerals. So the small intestine is by design very permeable. But when there are fecal microbes in the small intestine, the microbes and their toxins irritate and inflame the intestinal wall, making it even more permeable, and so there's increased entry of LPS endotoxin through the wall of the small intestine into the bloodstream and that's called endotoxemia, and by that route LPS endotoxin can gain access to all the organs of the body, like breast or prostate or liver or thyroid gland, and thereby introduce changes that can lead to the development of cancer.

William Davis, MD: 7:30

You can see that there are some common threads. There are some patterns to emerge out of all this. One is that many cancers originate with the mouth, that is, microbes that originate with the mouth, such as Fusobacterium nucleatum and Porphyromonas gingivalis. By the way, when those two are together, as they often are in people who have bleeding gums or gingivitis or periodontitis, even though those microbes are present normally and don't necessarily cause harm, when you have those situations of bleeding gums, gingivitis or periodontitis, that's when these two microbes proliferate. And then, when they work together, they're especially lethal. And these microbes are able to gain access into other parts of the body. Fusobacterium enters the bloodstream every time you floss or brush or have other any kind of minor microtrauma to the mouth, and can also be obtained by swallowing and gain access to other parts of the body, such as the colon.

William Davis, MD: 8:25

It's not quite clear how porphyromonous gains access to other organs, but it does so. These two mouth microbes are a cause for numerous cancers in other parts of the body, or at least contribute to the cancers. Another pattern that emerges when you look at all this is that fecal microbes those are, those gram-negative proteobacteria like E coli and Enterobacter and Citrobacter are common inhabitants of various cancers all throughout the body. It's not quite clear at what point they participate. Do they initiate the cancer? Do they simply propagate it or make it worse and metastasize? Not quite clear. But we find colonic or fecal microbes in all those cancers, and the emerging science tells us that they do participate in causing or worsening the cancer. And then, lastly, another pattern that emerges is that many of the cancers also have that LPS endotoxin, now that LPS endotoxin comes from mostly fecal microbes. So once again we're back at the role of fecal microbes in the colon, but also in the small intestine, where they're given increased access to the rest of the body.

William Davis, MD: 9:34

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William Davis, MD: 10:10

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William Davis, MD: 11:17

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William Davis, MD: 12:31

Now let's get back to our discussion. Now, before we get to solutions to these issues, accepting that these are evolving concepts, I encourage you to get rid of the idea that there's an antibiotic for every microbe. That's a remnant of 1920s 1930s thinking. Penicillin emerged from that kind of thinking. If you have pneumococcal pneumonia, take this antibiotic. If you have a urinary tract infection from E coli, take that antibiotic.

William Davis, MD: 12:59

We want to get away from that kind of idea because more often than not, issues involving the microbiome are not just single microbes and you kill them with a single antibiotic. They're due to disruptions of the entire microbiome, and so just taking an antibiotic is not part of the solution. It's actually part of the problem, right? Multiple courses of antibiotics got us here and, of course, if it's all responded to antibiotics which are massively overused nowadays, we should be seeing a drop in cancer, right? If a lot of cancer is caused by the microbiome disruptions of the microbiome, the overuse of antibiotics should have been leading to a marked reduction in cancer incidence, and it has not, of course. In fact, cancers are increasing, and so get away from this idea of an antibiotic for every microbe.

William Davis, MD: 13:47

Instead, let's address the factors that allow microbial disruptors to take root. So if a lot of colon cancer, for instance, originates from microbes that come from the mouth, like Fusobacterium nucleatum and Porphyromonas gingivalis, especially when there's bleeding gums, gingivitis or periodontitis present, the solution involves better oral hygiene and having a dentist or a related health professional address those conditions, and not necessarily with an antimicrobial. There might be situations where an antimicrobial would be better, in case you have really bad case, say, of periodontitis and you're losing your teeth. In that situation you're probably better off with an antibiotic, but most of the time it's better dental hygiene that you manage, and with the assistance of some dental professional. The most important practice, by the way, in my view as a non-dentist, is to break the biofilm.

William Davis, MD: 14:42

My good friend, dr Debbie Osment, who is a functional dentist in Oklahoma City, talks a lot about this. She tells a story of how she would go to Peru once a year, pre-pandemic, to volunteer to offer her dental services to the people living in the mountains of Peru. And she told me that people would ride as much as two days on their donkeys to get to the American dentist for their free care. And she said that all she did from day till night was pull teeth, because these people shut up with mouths full of rotten teeth because they all chewed sugar cane. But then she's made an extraordinary observation, that is, an occasional person would show up with a full mouth of intact teeth and she asked them do you chew sugarcane? They say yes, and she'd ask what do you do different than other people? They say, well, I take a twig after I chew sugarcane and go between my teeth and clean them. Not a toothbrush, not fluoride toothpaste, no dentist besides Dr Osmond, just a twig.

William Davis, MD: 15:41

And so she advocates this concept of breaking the so-called biofilm, that is, the little film that many tooth decay causing microbes create and cause damage to your teeth. So the most important thing you can do for dental health is flossing and similar actions that break the biofilm. It could be a toothpick, it could be one of those little picks that you can use that are plastic and go between your teeth. But break the biofilm and don't use mouthwash. Mouthwash is extremely disruptive. It's shown to be unhealthy. For instance, your blood pressure goes up for a while after you use mouthwash because you've killed not just bad microbes but good microbes also. So it's very disruptive If you use sweeteners, try to use some xylitol now and then, because xylitol is antimicrobial and it's selective for the bad microbes, like streptococcus mutans. That causes tooth decay.

William Davis, MD: 16:34

So attention to the oral microbiome has the potential to reduce many cancers, especially colon cancer. Another area you want to pay attention to is to correct or improve colonic dysbiosis, that is, disrupted microbial composition in the colon and SIBO small intestinal bacterial overgrowth a much worse situation and we do that. We accomplish that by restoring important keystone microbes, that is, foundational microbes that you've likely lost because those microbes are very susceptible to common antibiotics and other factors. So this includes a list of microbes, but at the top of the list, lactobacillus roteri and Lactobacillus gasseri, two very important microbes. They're especially important because they colonize both the colon and the small intestine, where a lot of disruptions have occurred, and those two species specifically produce bacteriocins. They're champions at producing bacteriocins, natural antibiotics effective in killing those fecal microbes.

William Davis, MD: 17:40

Let's focus for a moment on our favorite microbe of all, lactobacillus roteri, because Lactobacillus roteri has been shown over and over again to be protective against numerous forms of cancer. For instance, when introduced into a pancreatic cancer model in an animal, it actually eradicates the cancer. When combined, especially with lactobacillus casea, another beneficial microbe, lactobacillus rhodori, has also been shown to reduce the formation of polyps in the colon. Now, these observations have yet to be confirmed in humans, but so far the animal and the experimental evidence is extremely powerful in illustrating how lactobacillus ruterite, this one microbe that we ferment using my method of extended fermentation, obtained very high counts of around 300 billion per half cup serving of the yogurt. Recall, it's not yogurt. It looks and smells like yogurt, but it's not. But it's our way of getting very high counts of reuterite and that is looking like an extremely powerful strategy for reducing or preventing several forms of cancer.

William Davis, MD: 18:44

So if you don't know what I'm talking about, take a look at my other Defiant Health podcasts or my blog, my drdavisinfinitehealthcom blog, where I tell you how to make these as yogurts. It's not yogurt. It looks and smells like yogurt, but it's not yogurt. It looks and smells like yogurt. But it's a way to ferment these microbes to very high counts typically 300 billion, 300 billion per half cup serving of this yogurt. Have with some blueberries or some chia seeds, whatever, but you want to get these microbes to recolonize your entire gi tract, including the 24 feet of small intestine.

William Davis, MD: 19:18

So if these keystone microbes are successful in killing off fecal microbes, that is, the fecal proteobacteria that have that endotoxin, the LPS endotoxin, in their cell wall, guess what happens? Guess what follows? There's a reduction in LPS endotoxemia. And if you're successful in pushing or eradicating fecal microbes in the small intestine, the permeable small intestine, you further reduce endotoxemia. You reduce the entry of microbes into the bloodstream. You reduce the entry of LPS endotoxin and giving them less opportunity to get to your breasts or thyroid gland or liver or prostate. And so these strategies that seem to focus on the mouth and on the microbial composition of your small intestine and colon are ways, I believe, that potentially could massively reduce your potential for cancers in virtually every organ of the body. It doesn't mean you're impervious, but I believe you've ratcheted down dramatically your potential risk for various cancers over your lifetime.

William Davis, MD: 20:28

Another important strategy to accomplish these ends is to include lots and lots of fermented foods Foods like kefir, kimchi, sauerkraut, fermented sauerkraut, veggies you ferment on your kitchen counter all sorts of wonderful ways to ferment foods and include the fibers that nourish microbes. These are fibers like inulin or fructooligosaccharides that come from foods such as onions, garlic, other root vegetables, jicama, legumes like black beans, white beans, red beans, kidney beans. And don't forget hyaluronic acid, one of the very few fibers sourced from animals. So hyaluronic acid has been abandoned by most people because most people have stopped eating organ meats. So add back hyaluronic acid as a powder. Take these steps. Now.

William Davis, MD: 21:11

If this is a little bit strange or complicated to you, take a look at my drdavesinfinitehealthcom blog posts. There's also a membership website where we talk about these things face-to-face via Zoom every about once a week. Also, my Supergut book. Supergut has all these recipes for all kinds of different fermented foods, including what I call SIBO yogurt, lactobacillus roteri yogurt, lactobacillus gasseri yogurt and many other fermented foods all meant to help you rebuild your microbiome. Now, if you learned something by listening to this episode of Defiant Health, I encourage you to subscribe through your favorite podcast directory. Post a review, post a comment, tell your friends. Let's build this community of people who want to be empowered in their own health to compensate for the deficiencies of the modern healthcare system. Thanks for listening.