Smoking, Almonds, and Cancer: The Missing Link
I hope you’re wondering what these 3 things (smoking, almonds, and cancer) all have in common with each other?
Interestingly, these 3 things have about 100 trillion things in common. In other words, they’re all linked by the bacteria in your gut.
Here are 3 recent studies:
Smoking Cessation Induces Profound Changes in the Composition of the Intestinal Microbiota in Humans
Prebiotic effects of almonds and almond skins on intestinal microbiota in healthy adult humans
Emerging roles of the microbiome in cancer
I write a lot about the bacteria in our gut, but that is primarily because it’s much more important than we often give it credit for. Here’s a brief summary of these 3 studies:
1. In the first study, scientists found that the bacteria in human intestines change very rapidly (and in good ways) after someone stops smoking. This change in gut flora may actually be responsible for the weight gain that many smokers see after quitting smoking. In the end, it’s just one more reason not to start smoking.
2. In the second study, researchers found that almonds (and almond skins) both had significantly positive effects on gut flora.
3. In the third article, various studies on mice show that changes in gut flora can make the mice more or less susceptible to cancer, likely through increased inflammation as well as changes to gene expression. Pretty profound.
Treasure Your Gut Bacteria
In the end, these 3 studies aren’t really linked in many ways, except to show one more time just how important it is to make sure that we care for the bacteria in our intestines.
And there’s no better way to do that than eating a diet composed almost entirely of whole (Paleo) foods.
Images: Copyright (c) corund from Fotolia and Comugnero Silvana from Fotolia