Warning: Common food additives linked to colon cancer

Researchers may have found the smoking gun as to why inflammatory bowel disease and colon cancer rates are spiraling out of control.

This alarming rise is also striking those younger than ever. It’s now not uncommon for highly aggressive colon cancers to be diagnosed in people under 50.

And the reason may be found right in your kitchen — in foods as diverse as bread, ice cream and mayo.

Because it turns out that what increases the shelf life of all these foods, may very well be shortening your life.

Connecting the dots

We all know that oil and water don’t mix. But food manufacturers have found a way to defy that principle, and keep oil, water and all sorts of other ingredients neatly blended together.

But here’s the danger — that fix, in the form of additives called emulsifiers, may be what’s behind the big rise in colon cancers and other bowel diseases.

Researcher Emilie Viennois, from the Institute of Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University, has been on the trail of emulsifiers for some time now. And the more she connects the dots between these chemicals, inflammation and cancer, the more we learn just how dangerous these additives are.

Emulsifiers (some are actually considered detergents!), are put in scores of processed foods to help them last longer and keep all the ingredients homogenized. Some, you may have noticed on ingredient labels, like one called “polysorbate 80,” but there are lots of them. And many foods contain a whole bunch.

Dr. Viennois found that emulsifiers can easily alter the bacteria in our gut, “creating more bad” and inflammatory kinds of microbes. That, she says, is what can put out the welcome mat for Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis (as well as other types of IBD) and colon cancer.

Colon cancer is something that has been on the rise since the 1940s and 50s. And Dr. Viennois points out that increase exactly matches the time frame of when all these emulsifiers starting being added to our food.

Although her research consisted of a laboratory study in mice, the researchers have given us no reason to believe that these additives won’t affect people in the same way.

And while FDA rules put a cap on how much of any one emulsifier is allowed in a food, it’s basically meaningless, as food companies can put as many different kinds in a product as they like.

Plus that, the researchers only studied the effects of two emulsifiers — and not at some gigantic dose, either, but at the same level we’re being exposed to from foods.

Perhaps even more revealing is what Dr. Viennois said she would advise us to do to stay safe. And that’s to make more home-cooked meals and use less “food industry products.”

Of course, that’s easier said than done!

But there are some easy ways to reduce your exposure and not have to start cooking everything from scratch.

For example:

• Read ingredient labels and put back products that sound more like a chemistry experiment than food! Take bread for instance. Look for brands that don’t use additives called “dough conditioners,” which are emulsifiers.
• When buying processed foods, try to include more organic brands. That’s an easy way to steer clear of these additives.
• Dr. Viennois also suggests not using all processed foods in a meal, but mixing them in with home-made ones to reduce our exposure.

And don’t forget that this research tells us, once again, how important it is to maintain good gut bacteria.

So taking a daily probiotic and including foods like yogurt and kefir in your diet can help keep that all-important good bacteria going strong.

“This common processed food ingredient causes cancer in mice” Alice Park, November 7, 2016, Time, time.com