What do gut bacteria have to do with breast cancer? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Certain bacteria commonly found in the gut produce toxins that promote breast cancer, a Johns Hopkins study shows. Kimmel Cancer Center director William Nelson at Johns Hopkins says there is a pathway where such an association makes sense.

Nelson: When it interacted with those cells or those tissues that increased the levels of an enzyme called spermine oxidase. It generates reactive oxygen and inflammatory mediators. Inflammation is at the root cause of almost all carcinoma like cancers: breast cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer, pancreas cancer. It's chronic inflammation in some way is a driver of the condition itself. When they did this if they blocked this enzyme, there are some drugs inhibitors that are about to become drugs I think that can block this enzyme, in these model systems that reduces breast cancer.     :33

Nelson says such an intervention requires vigilance that this pathway is active and needs to be inhibited. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.