Prostate cancer is the no. 1 cancer among men. Risk factors include Afro-American origin, prostate cancer in a first degree relatives and the presence of BRCA2 genetic mutations. No specific association has been described yet between prostate cancer and specific gut bacteria.
The GI tract is the home of billions of bacteria. The microbiome functions as a separate organ and contains 10 times the amount of genes compared to the human genome. The microbiome has crucial impact on the human metabolism, inflammatory processes and filtration of GI content. All of these effects may contribute to the exposure of the human body to various carcinogens and inflammatory factors, leading eventually to the development of cancer in remote organs.
The purpose of this research is to try and identify specific species that might be related to the development of prostate cancer.
