Probiotic Foods and Cancer

Along with cancer often comes the use of chemotherapy which brings with it a host of other problems. There has been some research done on the connection between the gut and chemo. In one clinical study, researchers gave a group of mice an injection of chemotherapy that would, pound for pound, kill most adult human beings. Why? According to Jian-Guo Geng, associate professor at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry, “All tumors from different tissues and organs can be killed by high doses of chemotherapy and radiation, but the current challenge for treating the later-staged metastasized cancer is that you actually kill the [patient] before you kill the tumor.” So the goal was to test a recently discovered biological mechanism that focuses on preserving the integrity of the gastrointestinal tract—a mechanism that helped mice live through this lethal dose of chemotherapy.

The mice were injected with a substance called Rspo1, or R-spondon1, which activates stem cell production within the gut. These stem cells then rebuild damaged tissue faster than chemo can destroy it. Of the mice that were given R-spondon1, 50 to 75 percent survived the potentially fatal chemotherapy dose. All the mice that did not receive R-spondon1 died.^{2, 3} Here is the exciting part: your body already has a way to make R-spondon1 on its own. Inside the human gut, a layer of epithelial cells is regenerated every four to five days, as long as you have the right gut flora. If you have healthy gut flora and include a group of healthy strains of bacteria, your body will regenerate itself. If it is not healthy, then it slows or halts the regeneration of your intestinal cells. The probiotics in your gut can determine how, and if, your body survives chemotherapy—making it even more crucial for those with cancer and going through chemo to add probiotics and prebiotics to their diet.

In 2005, a team of researchers in Poland and the United States studied two groups of young Polish women: one that had immigrated to the United States, and one that had not. They found that the rate of breast cancer was three times higher for those in the U.S. than for those still living in Poland. Further studies concluded that the consumption of cultured sauerkraut was a possible factor in the differing rates of cancer. Women in Poland ate an average of 30 pounds of cultured sauerkraut each year, while the women in the U.S. ate less than 10 pounds per year.^[4] Why does this matter? Sauerkraut contains high levels of glucosinolates, which have been shown to have anticancer activity in laboratory research.

Other studies have focused on estrogen metabolism and the enzymes in sauerkraut and its juices. A 2012 study conducted by biochemist Hanna Szaefer and her colleagues looked at the ability of the enzymes in cabbage and sauerkraut to change the expression of the P450 enzyme, which metabolizes estrogen but is also carcinogenic. Their research supported the idea that the consumption of sauerkraut was a beneficial food for the prevention of breast cancer in women.^[5]