Which types of cancer treatment are impacted by the gut microbiome? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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More types of gut bacteria, or greater diversity, the healthier your microbiome. That’s one message of a recent review looking at the impact of microbiome health on cancer. Kimmel Cancer Center director William Nelson at Johns Hopkins explains how gut bacteria are a factor.

Nelson: Most of that ends up being the reduced diversity. People don't do as well with immune checkpoint inhibitors or by the way even CAR-T cells for blood kind of cancers. I think it may in fact be as much related to the whole environment not just the bugs but what they've done to the lining of the colon and the turns out to be incredibly important. By the way that same kind of phenomenon maybe why you get certain cancers like colorectal cancer.  I suspect you might be able to change it if you adopt a very significant lifestyle change, really change your diet quite substantially.   :32

Nelson says high fiber diets are known to improve the diversity of gut bacteria and are likely better for overall health as well. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.