One of the most concerning trends in the field of oncology is the increasing incidence of cancer among individuals under 50, particularly colorectal cancer. A new research initiative, funded with £20 million over a five-year period, has been approved to uncover the reasons behind the rise in colorectal cancer cases. This endeavor is jointly supported by Cancer Research UK, the National Cancer Institute in the USA, the French National Cancer Institute, and the UK's Bowelbabe Fund.
This project will utilize blood, urine, and fecal samples from millions of people across approximately 15 biobanks in Europe, North America, and India. By measuring everything individuals are exposed to, termed as "exposures," the research aims to determine whether changes in food, beverages, medications, air pollutants, or other environmental chemicals are linked to the rising cases of colorectal cancer.
Over the past 30 years, the number of individuals under 50 diagnosed with colorectal cancer has been on the rise. The data is sourced from Mohammed Elamine ALIOUI/Alamy.
Andrew Chan, co-lead of the project and affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital in the United States, stated, "Exposure refers to all factors in the external world that impact people's health."
Over the past 30 years, the proportion of individuals aged 25 to 49 diagnosed with such tumors in the UK has increased by around 50%. Similar trends have been observed in the United States, Canada, Australia, and several European countries.
This trend is concerning to doctors, particularly because tumors in younger people tend to be more aggressive and are often diagnosed at later stages. There are many speculations about the reasons behind this, with the main suspects being various aspects of modern diets such as processed foods, as well as exposure to antibiotics and pollutants.
In a new project, Chan and his team are attempting to identify and measure all chemical substances in medical samples from previous studies and conduct further investigations. They will use mass spectrometry to identify the chemical characteristics of novel compounds entering the body or the disrupted levels of naturally occurring biochemical substances.
One of the biological repositories being utilized in the project is the Nurses' Health Study, a large-scale American project where some participants have donated fecal and blood samples, enabling the team to analyze their gut bacteria. Another repository is the Danish Newborn Screening Biobank, which contains nearly 2 million dried blood samples from almost all babies born in Denmark since 1982. This will allow the team to understand if anything encountered in utero is associated with a higher risk of colorectal cancer.
Chan explained, "If certain biochemical substances in the blood are correlated with the risk of colorectal cancer, researchers will investigate whether blood tests can identify individuals more prone to colorectal cancer. These may be the target population for more in-depth cancer screening."
Jordana Bell, a collaborator from King's College London in the UK, stated that the project will also test whether targeted dietary interventions can reverse blood and gut bacteria characteristics associated with the risk of colorectal cancer. "We will understand potential mechanisms by identifying presumed causal factors, design intervention trials, and attempt implementation."
