Gut bugs and cancer - research buttresses link

The mammalian nervous system, also called enteric nervous system, works together with the gut bugs to stimulate the gastrointestinal tract, influencing appetite, moods and propensity to a variety of diseases, according to a Rouen statement.

The system with which the microbes interact has about half a billion neurons. There are 85 billion neurons in the central nervous system.

Researchers at the University of Maryland, US, had earlier identified 26 species of gut bugs tied to obesity and related metabolic complications, including insulin resistance, high blood sugar levels, increased blood pressure and high cholesterol, known collectively as "the metabolic syndrome".

Findings published earlier this year showed that the activity of the bugs could play a part in the propensity to develop diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke, according to an article in Public Library of Science ONE.

Senior author Claire M. Fraser, of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said gut bugs, particularly E.coli, have been implicated in bowel cancer, which claims 16,000 lives a year.

Tests on mice and people, carried out in the UK and the US, have pointed to E coli being a strong suspect in bowel cancer.

The bug-cancer link was related to a version that sticks well to the inside of the lower bowel, or colon, which contains genes that make a poison which causes the type of damage to DNA usually seen in cancer.

Experiments also showed that mice inoculated with the bug are at very high odds of developing bowel cancer - as long as the E coli carries the poison-making 'pks' genes.