Colorectal cancer rates have been on the upswing in younger people for 30 years. Currently, about 10% of new cases are diagnosed in people 50 and under. Most of these patients have no family history. With these concerning trends, scientists are trying to identify risk-lowering factors, and one of them may be down to how often you eat a breakfast staple. 

Researchers at Mass General Brigham recently published a study on whether long-term yogurt consumption may impact colorectal cancer risk, as prior research has suggested it might. Yogurt includes a variety of nutrients, as well as bacteria like Bifidobacterium. The study, published in the journal Gut Microbes, looked at data from two long-running studies to identify the yogurt-related habits of patients who developed Bifidobacterium-positive and Bifidobacterium-negative colorectal cancers. 

Using data from more than 132,000 people who had been followed for 30 years through the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, the researchers found 3,079 cases of colorectal cancer, 1,121 of which had available data on Bifidobacterium in tumor tissue. Just under 350 of those cases were Bifidobacterium-positive, while the rest were negative. 

While the researchers did not find a link between yogurt consumption and overall colorectal cancer incidence, they did find that those who consumed at least two servings of yogurt each week had 20% lower rates of Bifidobacterium-positive colorectal cancer. This was driven largely by lower rates of Bifidobacterium-positive proximal colon cancer, which is deadlier than distal cancer. 

The findings suggest that yogurt could help change the gut microbiome and, by extension, provide protection against some forms of colorectal cancer.

Dr. Shuji Ogino, study co-author and chief of the Program in Molecular Pathological Epidemiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, explains, “Our study provides unique evidence about the potential benefit of yogurt. My lab’s approach is to try to link long-term diets and other exposures to a possible key difference in tissue, such as the presence or absence of a particular species of bacteria. This kind of detective work can increase the strength of evidence connecting diet to health outcomes.”

Though more research is needed, there’s also hope that it may help address rising colorectal cancer cases in young people.

Dr. Andrew T. Chan, co-author and chief of the Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, says, “This paper adds to the growing evidence that illustrates the connection between diet, the gut microbiome, and risk of colorectal cancer. It provides an additional avenue for us to investigate the specific role of these factors in the risk of colorectal cancer among young people.”

You can read the whole study here.