KEY TAKEAWAYS

Mass General Brigham researchers looked at the role of long-term diet and the gut bacteria in colorectal cancer using data on participants who had been followed for three decades.

They found that people who consumed two or more servings of yogurt per week tended to have lower rates of colorectal cancer positive for Bifidobacterium.

The findings suggest that yogurt consumption may change the microbiome, leading to a protective effect for some types of colorectal cancer.

Researchers from the Francis Crick Institute have found that some particularly aggressive lung cancer cells can develop their own electric network, like that seen in the body’s nervous system.

A new study by Silent Spring Institute and University of California, Berkeley shows how California’s right-to-know law called Proposition 65 has prompted major retailers and manufacturers to remove toxic substances in their products in order to avoid having to warn people if their products could expose them to harmful amounts of a chemical that causes cancer, birth defects, or reproductive harm.

Cigarette smoke causes cancer primarily by damaging the DNA. A new study that mapped the DNA damages caused by smoking, reveals that the way our DNA is organized and chemically modified can influence how cigarette smoke damages it, how well the damage is repaired and how many mutations will form. Specifically, areas of DNA that are more open and active are more prone to damage but also better at repairing themselves, which helps to prevent mutations. However, in areas where repair is less efficient, damage can lead to mutations that may drive cancer development This research highlights how our DNA's environment shapes the risk of smoking-related lung cancer.