Probiotics and liver cancer
This article was originally published in The Tan Sheet
Executive Summary
"Our results clearly showed that it is possible to reduce the biologically effective dose of alflatoxin by giving subjects who had detectable alflatoxin exposure a probiotic twice a day for fives weeks," researchers conclude in the May American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. "Thus, probiotic-based food products may be an effective dietary prevention approach that could be implemented in many regions of the world to prevent the development of liver cancer or other environmentally induced cancers," Hani El-Nezami, University of Kuopio, Finland, et al., state. The randomized, double-blind study tracked 90 healthy young men from Southern China, where hepatocellular carcinoma is the third most common cause of cancer death. Participants received either placebo or a probiotic containing Lactobacillus rhamnosus LC705 and Propionibacterium freudenreichii subsp. Shermanii strains. Researchers find that urine samples collected from the probiotic group had lower levels of AFB-N7 guanine, a marker of alflatoxin. The reduction was 36% at week 3, and 55% at week 5, but disappeared during the 5-week post-intervention period...