Regular yogurt consumption linked to lower incidence of a proximal colon cancer
CANCER DIGEST – Feb. 16, 2025 – Consuming yogurt twice a week may be linked to a lower risk of a type of colon cancer that occurs in the right side of the intestines, according to a population study by researchers at Mass General Brigham, in Boston.
The researchers looked at the role of long-term diet and gut bacteria in colorectal cancer using data collected by two long-standing population studies, the Nurses’ Health Study, and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. The two ongoing studies have followed more than 100,000 health professionals since 1976 for the Nurses’ study and since 1986 for the health professionals study.
Both studies track a variety of lifestyle behaviors and their effects on people’s health. Among the behaviors tracked is diet, with participants filling out questionnaires periodically asking about the foods they regularly consume, including daily intake of yogurt, as well as other dairy products.
In this study the researchers, led by Satoko Ugai, an epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, analyzed health outcomes and found 3,079 documented cases of colorectal cancer among the participants in both studies. The researchers are trying to evaluate the health effects of a variety of gut bacteria. For this study they zeroed in on a bacterium called bifidobacterium, which is typically found in yogurt. Their findings appeared online Feb. 12, 2025 in the the journal Gut Microbes.
Of the 3,000 cases of cancer, there was data on bifidobacterium in 1,121 patients with colorectal cancer. Among those patients 31 percent of tumors contained bifidobacterium, while 775 (69%) did not contain the bacterium, suggesting a lower rate of cancer among people consuming bifidobacterium. While the analysis did not show an overall lower rate of colorectal cancer among yogurt consumers, it did show a 20 percent lower rate of proximal cancer containing bifidobacterium.
Studies have shown that colorectal cancer that occurs on the right side of the intestines, referred to as proximal cancer, tends to be more aggressive and have worse outcomes. The analysis showed that people who ate yogurt had a lower incidence of proximal colorectal cancer.
“It has long been believed that yogurt and other fermented milk products are beneficial for gastrointestinal health,” said co-senior author Tomotaka Ugai, MD, PhD, in a press release. He is a member of the Department of Pathology at the Brigham and the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Our new findings suggest that this protective effect may be specific for Bifidobacterium-positive tumors.”
The researchers suggest that long-term yogurt consumption may lower the risk of proximal colon cancer by changing the but microbiome, but note that additional studies both in the laboratory and more detailed population studies will be needed to reach a definitive conclusion.
Sources: Mass General press release and the journal Gut Microbes.
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