Numerous scientific papers, research, empirical evidence & used cases have testified the role of our gut microbiome in improving our overall health. Our gut have critical functions to play including digesting food, regulating essential hormones, boosting metabolism, modulating satiety level, providing nutrients- vitamins, minerals & beneficial short chain fatty acids, detoxifying enzymes, neutralizing pathogens & making neurotransmitters.
However, our gut has a much bigger role to play when it comes to cancer treatment. Scientists have found that presence & activity level of certain microbes determine whether you will respond to disease treatment & drugs well.
Let us dig into this more deeper. Imagine your doctor has given you certain antibiotics so that your response to a particular disease treatment is better. Fortunately, this is where cancer treatment is heading. In fact, scientists have found that certain gut bacteria can determine how well a cancer treatment can improve personal health. In other words, certain bacteria can determine how well an individual will respond to drugs for cancer treatment. It has also found that certain bacteria are essential for success of cancer treatment in patients.
Our gut microbiome helps to breakdown hard to digest nutrients in our diet. It also breaks down many drugs we take such as many prescribed medications. Sometimes these drugs are effective due to how our gut microbiome interacts with these drugs. Now scientists & researchers believe that our gut microbiome might also influence effectiveness of drugs for cancer treatment.
New drugs referred to as immune checkpoint inhibitors help immune cells identify tumors & attack them. Oncologists are using these drugs on cancer patients who do not respond effectively to immunotherapies. What scientists have found is that gut microbiome composition improves the efficacy of these drugs in melanoma patients.
Our immune system is well equipped to identify & tackle mutated cells. However when a cell becomes cancerous, they develop a self defensive mechanism against immune cells. This essentially means that even when immune cells come in contact with cancerous cells, they fail to notice them & allow them to passby. The fact is these cancerous cells can communicate with immune cells & let them know all is well where they are thriving, thereby preventing immune cells from detecting them. Besides, these cancerous cells can even recruit these immune cells for their own use.
How does the role of the gut microbiome come into picture?
Cancer cells may produce a specific protein- PD-1 which allows them to move by without getting detected by the immune system. Inhibitors of these specific proteins PD-1 & PD-L1 block PD-1 created by immune cells & PD-L1 receptors in the immune system. This enabled our immune system to recognise these cancer cells for attack. These inhibitors only work on patients when they have a balanced gut microbiome. However for those who have gut dysbiosis or imbalance in the gut microbiome, these inhibitors do not work at all.
As per recent research, patients having a high abundance of bacterium Akkermansia muciniphila have a good response to PD-1 inhibitor immunotherapy drug.
Lot of research has shown that our gut microbiome plays a role in many different aspects of our health. Everyday new disease research uncovers evidence that our microbes are essential to combat chronic diseases & improve our health span.
Sources:
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2017/11/01/science.aan4236
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6068015/
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaoncology/fullarticle/2293945
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6371/91
https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03341143
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gut-microbes-can-shape-responses-to-cancer-immunotherapy/
