Exploring the role of diet-induced premature immune aging on the development and prevention of early onset colorectal cancer

Project Summary

Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related death in Canada and is increasingly being diagnosed in patients under the age of 50. Although unhealthy diets are proposed to play an important role, no one knows how. One reason cancer typically affects older people is that our body’s immune system becomes less efficient as we age and this limits its ability to detect and destroy foreign-looking cancer cells. We propose that the immune cells in patients who develop early onset colorectal cancer undergo premature aging and that dietary factors play a role in driving this. Since aging modifies cells at a molecular level, we think that identifying molecular signatures of aging in the immune cells of young adults could help predict their risk of developing early onset cancer. In addition, by better understanding how diet regulates immune aging, we can develop ways of mitigating this risk by changing dietary habits or developing drugs that reverse premature immune aging.