With the increase in cancer cases that appear at all ages, and especially among young people, there are many researches for methods of prevention and treatment.
These include a newer experimental research effort by researchers at the Francis Crick Institute, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Aalborg University in Denmark.
In their latest research, published in Science, they found that vitamin D encourages the growth of a type of gut bacteria in mice, improving immunity to cancer. Specifically, they observed that laboratory mice fed a vitamin D-rich diet had better immune resistance to experimentally transplanted cancers and improved response to immunotherapy. This result was verified when gene editing was used to remove a protein that binds vitamin D in the blood and keeps it out of the tissues.
Vitamin D, also known as the sunshine vitamin as sunlight increases its production, is found in foods such as fatty fish, eggs and fortified foods.
The role of the microbiome
Surprisingly, the research team found that vitamin D acts on intestinal epithelial cells, which in turn increase the amount of a bacteria called Bacteroides fragilis. The particular microbe gave the experimental animals better immunity to cancer, as the transplanted tumors did not grow as much, but researchers are not yet sure how.
Extending their study and aiming to test whether bacteria alone could provide better immunity to cancer, they fed mice on a normal diet Bacteroides fragilis. These mice were also better able to resist tumor growth, but not when the mice were fed a diet deficient in vitamin D.
In the past, previous studies have suggested a link between vitamin D deficiency and cancer risk in humans, although the evidence was inconclusive. Furthermore, although the bacterium Bacteroides fragilis is also found in the human microbiome, more studies will be needed to fully understand how vitamin D works in immune resistance to cancer through the same mechanism.
"Identifying the factors that distinguish a good microbiome from a bad one is a big challenge. But we found that vitamin D helps gut bacteria strengthen immunity against cancer by improving the response to immunotherapy in mice," explained Dr Evangelos Giambazolias, former postdoctoral researcher at the Crick Institute, and now head of the Immunosurveillance Group at the Research Institute of Cancer UK Manchester.
"If today we can answer exactly how vitamin D supports a 'good' microbiome, we will be close to new ways in which the microbiome influences the immune system, potentially offering exciting opportunities for cancer prevention or treatment," he concludes.
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