Popular Science

Colorectal cancer is the second most common type of cancer in Norway. Now Norwegian researchers believe that the bacteria in your stool may help in the fight against it.

• Kreft Kan tarmbakterier avsløre kreft? (aftenposten.no)

Gut fungi may hold clues for early colorectal cancer detection, but current tools are not yet reliable enough. 

• Sopp i tarmen kan gje varsel om tarmkreft – men dagens verktøy er ikkje gode nok

Norwegians eat a lot of ultra-processed food, with half of their energy intake now coming from these products. Some products may be healthy, while others are not.

• Denne maten spiser du sannsynligvis for mye av

Using new technology, the CRCbiome project have examined the feces of over 1000 Norwegians and detected almost 20,000 different viruses, of which two-thirds of the viruses were completely unknown. It turned out that each person had at least 200 different types of viruses in their gut. Many of these viruses were only found in one or two people. Suprisingly we saw a correlation between some of the most common viruses and the participants' lifestyles.

• Stor norsk studie på tarmvirus overrasker: Tre ting i livsstilen vår ser ut til å påvirke (aftenposten.no)

Norway has unfortunately witnessed a high incidence of colorectal cancer, raising concerns about its prevalence. What factors contribute to this situation, and why is this cancer colloquially referred to as 'oil cancer'? 

• Episode av EKKO i NRK radio den 29.11.2022 - Skjenk en tanke til tarmen

Scientists in the CRCbiome project analyze all the genes in the intestinal contents of thousands of people. The goal is to find new ways to detect early stages of colorectal cancer by using the bacterial flora and machine learning methods.

• Bakteriegener i avføringen kan avsløre tidlig kreft i tarmen (forskning.no)
• Ny forskning: Tarmbakterietest kan gjøre tarmscreening enklere (onkologisktidsskrift.no)
• Kan avsløre tidlig kreft i tarmen ved å se på bakteriegener i avføringen | Titan.uio.no
• Bruker maskinlæring for å avsløre kreft tidlig (cw.no)
• Bakteriegener i avføringen kan avsløre tidlig kreft i tarmen - Apollon (uio.no)

This Norwegian study (part of the CRCbiome) found no association between moderate amounts of processed meat and colorectal cancer. However, a high intake of red and processed meat was associated with findings of advanced colorectal lesions in FIT-positive colorectal cancer screening participants.

• Norsk studie: Ingen sammenheng mellom moderate mengder bearbeidet kjøtt og tarmkreft (onkologisktidsskrift.no)