A group of researchers from Stanford Medicine, in the United States, has managed to find a “direct link” between fiber consumption and a series of genetic functions related to cancer preventionwhich further highlights the importance of adding fiber-rich foods such as beans, nuts, cruciferous vegetables or avocados to the diet.
“We found a direct link between fiber consumption and the modulation of genetic function that has anticancer effectsand we think this is likely a global mechanism because the short-chain fatty acids that result from the digestion of fiber can travel throughout the body,” said Michael Snyder, professor of genetics at Stanford Medicine.
After that, he recalled that generally “people’s diet is very poor in fiber”, which means that your microbiome is not nourished properlyso it “can’t produce as many short-chain fatty acids as it should,” which “does a disservice” to people’s health.
The research, published in the journal Nature Metabolismhas managed to identify the direct epigenetic effects of two common byproducts of fiber digestion, such as propionate and butyrate (short chain fatty acids), whose genetic alterations can lead to anti-cancer actions.
Scientists have pointed out that, in addition to being a source of energy for the body, these two acids alter genetic expression in healthy human cells, colon cancer treated and untreated humanand in mouse intestines.
In fact, they have found direct epigenetic changes in specific genes that regulate cell proliferation and differentiation, along with apoptosis, or preprogrammed cell death processes, all of which are important for interrupt or control growth uncontrolled cell that underlies cancer.
“By identifying the target genes of these important molecules, we can understand how fiber exerts its beneficial effects and what goes wrong during cancer,” said Snyder, who points out that these discoveries could also stimulate debate and research on the possible synergistic effects of diet and cancer treatment.
During the study, scientists used chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by sequencing to map the genome-wide location of four short-chain acyl histone marks, H3K18pr, H3K18bu, H4K12pr, and H4K12bu’. Thus, propionate and butyrate join together and act as gene promoters involved in growth, differentiation and ion transport.
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