A team of researchers from
the Department of Animal, Dairy and Veterinary Sciences at Utah State
University has discovered there may be a link between diet and colon cancer —
and it may be inheritable across generations.
For the past three years, a
team led by Abby Benninghoff, a professor of animal medicine at USU, has been
feeding a diet of sugars and carbohydrates to mice.
“The overall goal of our
research program is to determine how diet influences cancer risk,” Benninghoff
said. “We are studying how a western-type diet that is high in calories and
relatively poor in nutrient content increases risk of certain cancers.”
That work demonstrated a
likely link between the western diet and cancer. Now the team is trying to
determine how ancestral diet influences cancer risk in later generations.
“It’s kind of scary,” said
research team member Korry Hintze. “It’s not just how you eat and behave. We
now know that what your grandparents eat can have a huge impact on your own
health.”
The team has received funding
support from the Utah Agriculture Experiment Station and the U.S. Department of
Agriculture.
“The results we have
obtained to date are very intriguing,” Benninghoff said. “We plan to continue
this work for at least several more years to come.”
Jared Dangerfield, Amanda Grover, Lindsey Hall,
Heather Shulsen and Rebecca Wheatley contributed to this article.
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