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From the Daily Mail: A common food bug picked up in childhood may be fueling a colon cancer epidemic in young people, according to a bombshell study.
Colorectal (bowel) cancer, long considered a disease of old age, is increasingly striking people in their 20s, 30s and 40s in the US and UK in a phenomenon that has baffled doctors.
Now, researchers at the University of California San Diego believe they’ve found a potential culprit: E. coli, a foodborne bacteria that infects around 75,000-90,000 Americans each year and at least 1,500 Britons.
By analyzing DNA from young colon cancer patients, the team found unique genetic changes in their digestive tracts that appear to raise the risk of tumors forming — likely triggered during childhood, when the body is still developing.
They also detected traces of colibactin, a cancer-linked toxin produced by certain strains of E. Coli, lurking in tumors from patients under 40.
The report explains that the most common source of E. Coli is undercooked ground beef, where bacteria can spread during processing, but it can come from other foods as well.
The University of California San Diego published a report Wednesday morning titled, “Childhood Exposure to Bacterial Toxin May Be Triggering Colorectal Cancer Epidemic Among the Young.” The report begins:
In an effort to explain a modern medical mystery, an international team of researchers led by the University of California San Diego has identified a potential microbial culprit behind the alarming rise in early-onset colorectal cancer: a bacterial toxin called colibactin.
Produced by certain strains of Escherichia coli that reside in the colon and rectum, colibactin is a toxin capable of altering DNA. Now, scientists report that exposure to colibactin in early childhood imprints a distinct genetic signature on the DNA of colon cells—one that may increase the risk of developing colorectal cancer before the age of 50.
The new study, published on April 23 in Nature, analyzed 981 colorectal cancer genomes from patients with both early- and late-onset disease across 11 countries with varying colorectal cancer risk levels. The findings show that colibactin leaves behind specific patterns of DNA mutations that were 3.3 times more common in early-onset cases (specifically in adults under 40) than in those diagnosed after the age of 70. These mutation patterns were also particularly prevalent in countries with high incidence of early-onset cases.
READ MORE at Today.uscd.edu.
Led by MCC’s Dr. Ludmil Alexandrov, an international team has identified a distinct DNA mutation pattern linked to early-life exposure to the bacterial toxin colibactin.
Discover how this offers strong evidence that this microbial agent may be driving the global surge in… pic.twitter.com/d8OIyZTRrK
— UC San Diego Health Moores Cancer Center (@UCSDCancer) April 23, 2025
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