Mechanistic Link Between Eating Red Meat and Colon Cancer Revealed
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Red meat consumption has been consistently linked to an increased risk for colorectal cancer and a new study provides a mechanistic reason. The researchers analyzed DNA-sequencing data from matched normal and colorectal tumor tissues from 900 patients with colorectal cancer from the Nurses' Health Studies and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. All patients had provided information on their diets, lifestyles and other factors over several years before being diagnosed with colorectal cancer.
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@junaid-a Specifically, colorectal tumors harboring KRAS p.G12D, KRAS p.G13D, or PIK3CA p.E545K driver mutations, which are common in colorectal cancer, had greater enrichment of the alkylating signature relative to tumors without these cancer-driver mutations. Patients whose tumors had the highest levels of alkylating damage had a 47% greater risk of dying of colorectal cancer than did patients with lower levels of damage.