5 ways MD Anderson is researching the link between food and cancer

The relationship between what we eat and drink and our cancer risk is complex. It’s been the subject of research for decades.

“Nutrition research had its absolute hay day in the 90s, on the heels of everyone being obsessed with low-fat diets and doing aerobics starting in the 1980's,” says epidemiologist Carrie Daniel-MacDougall, Ph.D., who studies food and cancer. “When obesity became the second leading cause of cancer and the first in non-smokers, physical activity evidence for cancer prevention also started emerging. Everyone thought maybe it doesn't matter so much what you eat versus how much you eat.”

But could specific foods or nutrients impact our cancer risk – or even cancer treatment? As scientists gained insights in other areas – the microbiome, the immune system, genetics, direct effects on the tumor and many more – they’re using those insights to better understand how what we eat impacts whether we develop cancer and, if so, whether it spreads.

At MD Anderson, researchers are dedicated not only to finding new treatments for cancer but also preventing it in the first place. Here are five ways MD Anderson researchers are studying the link between nutrition and cancer.

The role of fiber in survival

At the end of 2021, research from MD Anderson published in Science showed patients with melanoma survived longer when they consumed more fiber-rich foods as they began immunotherapy treatment. The benefit was most noticeable in patients who achieved increased intake through food rather than supplements. In this study, Jennifer Wargo, M.D., Jennifer McQuade, M.D., Lorenzo Cohen, Ph.D., and Daniel-MacDougall led a team that demonstrated the importance of dietary fiber for both gut health and cancer treatment. This work also opened the floodgates for more research regarding food and cancer.

Sugary drinks linked to colorectal cancer

Jihye Yun, Ph.D., wondered if there was a link between sugary drinks, like soda, and colorectal cancer, a disease that has dramatically increased among young adults, independent of obesity. She and her team used laboratory models to study whether consuming beverages sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup leads to tumor growth. The results showed that drinking even the equivalent of one can of soda per day, sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup, led to more and larger tumors, without increasing weight gain or body fat.

Her study illustrated that high-fructose corn syrup could directly impact cancer by increasing tumor size, number, and grade. Now, Yun and her team are interested in understanding the effects of sugary drinks on the gut microbiome, which may, in turn, increase the development of colorectal cancer.

Beans, inflammation and immune-regulating gut microbes and metabolites

Another study found adding a cup of navy beans to the daily meals of colorectal cancer survivors resulted in positive changes in their gut microbiome, which is associated with cancer prevention and improved treatment outcomes. Participants in the BE GONE trial, conducted by Daniel-MacDougall and colleagues, showed an increase in beneficial bacteria and a decrease in pathogenic bacteria. Now Daniel-MacDougall, Wargo and McQuade are testing other foods naturally rich in prebiotic fiber and other nutrients on which the gut microbiome flourishes. In their study nicknamed PreFED, they are testing a prebiotic-food enriched diet in a variety of settings where the gut microbiome and immune function may be important – from employees receiving their annual flu vaccine to cancer patients receiving immunotherapy.

Bacteria levels, inflammation and immune response

A layer of mucus protects the intestinal bacteria in the gut microbiome from becoming inflamed and keeps other immune pathways from going awry. That layer and its interaction with diet is the focus of some of Robert Jenq, M.D.’s work. In 2022, he published a preclinical study that found diet has the potential to impact the levels of certain bacteria, which, in turn, prevented inflammation and reduced the likelihood of fever caused by cancer treatment.

What’s next for Jenq and his lab? He’s partnering with researchers and clinicians across MD Anderson to better understand patients’ diets to see how they’re impacted by microbiota-supporting nutrients.

The Mediterranean diet and prostate cancer risk

Urology oncologist Justin Gregg, M.D., has been studying the impacts of the Mediterranean diet in relation to prostate cancer progression in men on active surveillance. A few years ago, he and Daniel-MacDougall published a study in Cancer in which they found that men with localized prostate cancer fared better over the course of their disease if they reported a baseline dietary pattern that more closely followed the Mediterranean-style diet, which contains more fruits, vegetables, legumes, cereals and fish.

Following that observational study, Gregg and Daniel-MacDougall are conducting a human feeding study on the Mediterranean diet prior to surgery in patients with intermediate risk for prostate cancer. It will measure the diet’s effects on biological markers.

Similar studies have recently been completed by McQuade, Daniel-MacDougall, Wargo and others at MD Anderson in melanoma patients receiving immunotherapy. 

The latest publications are only the beginning of a deeper understanding of the relationship between food and cancer, but they give today’s researchers a wealth of knowledge and experience to build on.

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