2023 Gut Review Links Transit Time to Microbiome Shifts and Colon Cancer Risk
Updated
Updated · ScienceAlert · Jul 29
2023 Gut Review Links Transit Time to Microbiome Shifts and Colon Cancer Risk
2 articles · Updated · ScienceAlert · Jul 29
Summary
Dozens of studies reviewed by Henrik Roager’s team found gut transit time is a major, often overlooked driver of differences in gut microbiome composition and activity.
Slower transit can leave microbes short of fermentable carbohydrates, pushing them toward protein fermentation and raising toxic metabolites while reducing beneficial short-chain fatty acids.
Those shifts may help explain links between prolonged or abnormal transit and IBS, IBD, constipation and colon cancer—the world’s third most common cause of cancer.
Diet, sex, age, physical activity, stress, medication and genetics all influence transit time, which can also vary within the same person.
The researchers said adding transit-time measurements to microbiome studies could improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases in the gut and beyond.
Could one overlooked metric—gut transit time—help connect constipation, colon cancer risk, and even Parkinson’s-linked gut changes?
If slow bowel transit pushes gut bacteria toward toxic protein fermentation, should microbiome research and routine care start measuring motility first?