December 21, 2024
Mohenjo
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Should you throw out your black plastic spatula? A recent study that reported alarming levels of several flame retardants in common black-colored plastic items (including cooking utensils, toys and hair products) had many people suddenly taking stock of their inky array of plastic kitchenware and considering wood or metal alternatives. And the reasons for the concern were understandable: the study’s findings, published in Chemosphere, highlighted potential health effects from exposure to the flame retardants, particularly decabromodiphenyl ether (decaBDE)—a chemical the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned in 2021 for its apparent links to cancer and reproductive, developmental and immunologic toxicity effects.
But this week the study’s authors issued a correction that suggests exposure to decaBDE from the tested products isn’t as close to the EPA’s safety reference level as they initially thought. The decaBDE exposure they estimated from the screened products is still correct, but it’s one tenth of the reference dose. The study had miscalculated the comparison by an order of magnitude.
The amount of flame retardants in such products is “not as harmful, with respect to the EPA guidance, as [the researchers] originally stated, although, with these chemicals, they may be harmful when you’re exposed to small amounts over a long period of time,” says Andrew Turner, a biogeochemist at the University of Plymouth in England, who wasn’t involved in the research and studies the disposal and recycling of plastic consumer goods. “It’s difficult to put numbers on these chemicals.”
The study authors issued an apology for the mistake in which they maintained that the “calculation error does not affect the overall conclusion of the paper.”
“Our results still show that when toxic additives are used in plastic, they can significantly contaminate products made with recycled content that do not require flame retardancy,” says Megan Liu, a co-author of the recent study and science and policy manager at Toxic-Free Future, an environmental health research and advocacy group. “The products found in this study to contain hazardous flame retardants included items with high exposure potential, such as things that touch our food, as well as toys, which come in contact with kids.”
Why might some black plastics contain flame retardants?
Flame retardants are required in certain products (often including computers, TVs and other common electronic items) to meet fire safety regulations. To reduce the amount of e-waste and fossil fuels needed to make new plastics, some of these items are recycled into black plastics. But the problem is that “you could also recycle the flame retardants and other chemicals that are associated with that plastic,” says Stuart Harrad, an environmental chemist at the University of Birmingham in England, who wasn’t involved in the paper. “Now that’s fine to some degree, I suppose, if you’re only recycling the plastic into uses like TV sets, where you need to meet fire safety regulations. But the point is here is that that isn’t happening.”
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December 21, 2024
Mohenjo
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College grads are on pace to hold nearly twice the number of jobs over their careers compared to 15 years ago, according to LinkedIn’s
new Work Change Snapshot report. That’s 20 jobs now versus 11 in 2010. And the jobs they will have are going to be different. Think about it: Roles like data scientist, social media manager, and sustainability manager didn’t even exist 20 years ago. The rapid introduction of AI not only alters how professionals work but how they must present their AI skills in the job search, too.
And with AI directly impacting the skills and qualifications employers are looking for, candidates who have the skills to work alongside AI and the ability to navigate fast-paced, evolving environments, are being prioritized in the hiring process. Positioning yourself as part of that AI skills–ready group is half the battle.
Showcasing AI skills on your LinkedIn profile or résumé and knowing how to talk about AI in interviews are must-dos. Here’s how to best highlight your AI skills as you search for a new role:
Highlight AI skills in your job search
Almost half of recruiters on LinkedIn identify potential candidates by searching for specific skills. This literally means they’re searching for profiles with AI keywords in the About, Experience, and Skill sections.
Use the About section of your profile and résumé to weave in AI keywords and skills. While hiring managers are keeping an eye out for AI skills, such as prompt engineering or data literacy, people skills are also in demand right now. Be sure to include skills like communication, leadership, project management, teamwork, and adaptability on your profile along with specifics on how you’ve employed these skills to drive impact.
In the Experience section, add your AI skills within specific jobs or projects, to improve your chances of showing up in candidate searches. If you’ve used ChatGPT to help research or proof an email response, you’ve effectively employed prompt engineering. Use that verbiage on your profile:
“Frequently utilize AI to draft and refine customer communications.”
Or if you regularly use AI to take meeting notes, you can say something along the lines of:
“Routinely utilize AI tools to capture and organize meeting notes, resulting in streamlined workflows, enhanced productivity, and improved decision making.”
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December 20, 2024
Mohenjo
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President-elect Donald Trump wants Jay Bhattacharya, a physician-scientist and economist at Stanford University, to lead the National Institutes of Health. The NIH is a global powerhouse of science. Its mission is “to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability.”
Most politicians, even when criticizing the agency, recognize the good it has done in building effective public health measures. Cancer death rates continue to decline, for example, because of the work NIH investigators have done around prevention, detection, and treatment.
Bhattacharya does not see the agency’s successes this way. In his podcast Science from the Fringe, Bhattacharya recently said he is amazed by “the authoritarian tendencies of public health.” He struck a similar theme in a Newsmax interview: “[We need] to turn the NIH from something that’s [used] to control society into something that’s aimed at the discovery of truth to improve the health of Americans.”
The scientists who apply for NIH funding, sit on peer review panels, and administer grants would be surprised to hear they control society. They do science. The claims of authoritarianism are a screen for pushing a particular agenda that is likely to damage the NIH. Bhattacharya’s science agenda is political: to set concerns for personal autonomy against evidence-based public health science. This is not appropriate for NIH leadership.
Bhattacharya has never explained how the NIH controls society, given its role as a research institution, and it is hard to see how it does except perhaps in setting research priorities and awarding funding based on expert review. Is he
against public health legislation that has controlled lead emissions in vehicles, enforced vaccine requirements for children attending public schools, and promoted folate fortification in bread and fluoride in drinking water? This legislation has improved population health in terms of cognitive performance, infectious disease burden, neural tube defects in pregnancy, and oral health, respectively. Is this the kind of control he fears?
Public health authorities decide on a health promotion measure for a population based on the science, often for people vulnerable and unaware of health risks, when health benefits are clear. NIH research provides the evidence for these public health measures. It is fair to debate the quality of scientific evidence and benefit to population health relative to restrictions on autonomy and choice, but establishing mechanisms for population health risk and making recommendations based on this evidence are not authoritarianism, and making such a comparison is not the way to do good science or build trust.
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Jay Bhattacharya speaks during a roundtable discussion with members of the House Freedom Caucus on the COVID-19 pandemic at The Heritage Foundation on Thursday, November 10, 2022. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
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December 20, 2024
Mohenjo
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In navigating today’s turbulent business environment, open and collaborative relationships are increasingly essential. This is a point recognized by many executives and endorsed by more than 80% of contract negotiators. Yet our recent global study reveals a startling truth: most companies remain stuck in an outdated, adversarial approach to deal-making. This conflict-oriented mindset not only hampers innovation and growth but also leaves significant value on the table.
So, why are we stuck, and how do we make the shift?
Businesses must fundamentally reimagine their approach to contract negotiation, moving from a mindset of conflict prevention to one of collaborative value creation. This shift isn’t about being “nicer” in negotiations; it’s about unlocking hidden potential, driving innovation, and creating sustainable, mutually beneficial relationships. And part of that is getting better at selecting partners we trust.
Our comprehensive study of the most-negotiated terms, surveying 937 organizations worldwide, and representing both multinational corporations and small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs), paints a clear picture of the current state of contract negotiations:
- Misaligned priorities: The top five most negotiated terms (limitation of liability, price changes, indemnification, termination, and payment options) focus primarily on risk mitigation and worst-case scenarios. The primary message they send is: “I don’t trust you.”
- Disconnect between negotiation and reality: While companies spend considerable time haggling over legal protections and penalties, the most common sources of disagreement during contract execution are practical issues like pricing, scope, and delivery.
- Power imbalances: Negotiations are driven by power. Fifty-seven percent of negotiators say they regularly encounter situations where the counter party is a non-negotiator, aiming only to impose their template terms, regardless of suitability. The power imbalance is particularly acute in large-small business relationships, where 88% of SMEs report facing inflexibility from larger partners, and only 34% of large firms recognize SMEs’ strategic importance. This dynamic isn’t just ostensibly unfair; it’s increasingly unsustainable in an economy where agility and innovation drive competitive advantage.
- Missed opportunities: This failure to engage on “the things that matter” means that important conversations are missed. Only 16% of negotiators believe that they focus on the right topics, and only 39% believe that their contracts contribute to successful business outcomes.
- Misunderstanding of risk: The legal/financial stranglehold over contracting continues to prioritize mitigation (the false assumption that risk can be controlled with contractual terms) over meaningful risk management (a broader approach of understanding, monitoring, and actively addressing risks throughout the relationship).
This adversarial approach to negotiation comes at a significant cost:
- Wasted resources: Companies spend inordinate amounts of time and money negotiating terms that rarely come into play, neglecting the operational details that truly drive success and influence cost and value.
- Stifled innovation: When negotiations focus on risk mitigation and the imposition of standards, they leave little room for exploring creative solutions or novel partnership structures.
- Damaged relationships: The entire approach to bidding and negotiation typically generates an atmosphere of competition rather than cooperation. It’s an environment where transparency and openness are notable by their absence — and where contracts are divisive, rather than unifying.
- Missed value: By focusing on protecting their own interests, organizations often overlook opportunities for mutual gain and value creation.
A New Framework for Collaborative Contracting
These findings reveal the importance of new thinking in business contracting and an escape from the “mitigation mindset.” Our research identifies three interconnected strategies that characterize successful collaborative contracting:
Leading organizations are shifting from risk transfer to value creation.
This means focusing on terms that directly impact operational success and creating integrated negotiation teams that bring together commercial, legal, and operational perspectives.
Success requires aligning negotiation priorities with operational realities.
Organizations achieving this alignment prioritize practical terms that impact day-to-day operations and create frameworks for handling scope changes and delivery challenges. Those making this shift report significantly fewer disputes and stronger partnerships.
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December 19, 2024
Mohenjo
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The ongoing bird flu outbreak in the U.S. just got a bit more concerning: a person in Louisiana has been hospitalized with the first severe case of infection with the H5N1 avian influenza virus in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced in a statement issued on Wednesday. The governor of California also issued a state of emergency for bird flu Wednesday as a precaution.
A total of 61 human cases of H5N1 have been confirmed in the U.S. this year. Most of them have occurred in dairy or poultry farm workers—and most of them have been mild. The recent Louisiana case, initially reported by the Louisiana Department of Health last Friday, is the first known instance in which a person has been hospitalized for an with the H5N1 infection in the U.S. this year. An investigation is under way, but the involved person appears to have had contact with sick or dead birds from a backyard flock. The viral strain is different from the one currently circulating in dairy cows. Preliminary genetic sequencing revealed it is likely related to the D1.1 strain that is now circulating in wild birds and poultry in the U.S. and to a human case in Canada.
In addition to the Louisiana case, Delaware recently reported a probable H5N1 case that was detected by routine state influenza surveillance. The infected person did not have known contact with sick animals. The CDC could not confirm the type of influenza A virus after multiple tests and has classified it as a “probable case.” There have been at least two previous cases with no known exposure.
“These two cases do not change CDC’s current risk assessment for the general population, which remains low,” said Demetre Daskalakis, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, in a group call with reporters on Wednesday. Nevertheless, “the large number of animals—birds and mammals—infected with H5 bird flu increases the risk of the virus potentially infecting people and potentially adapting to cause human-to-human spread.”
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A person in Louisiana has been hospitalized with severe H5N1 influenza after having contact with sick backyard birds. The virus is similar to that found in wild birds and some poultry. Getty Images
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December 19, 2024
Mohenjo
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Employee wellbeing is under serious strain. Roughly 60% of workers say they’re struggling with engagement, and one in five report feeling lonely, according to Gallup. This is no small issue for managers: employees who aren’t thriving are less productive, less committed, and more likely to have a negative effect on your company’s bottom line.
That’s why you need to be aware of how your team is doing and be ready to step in if any issues arise. This takes a commitment to building trust and keeping communication open, says Emma Seppälä, a faculty member at the Yale School of Management and author of Sovereign: Reclaim Your Freedom, Energy, and Power in a Time of Distraction, Uncertainty, and Chaos.
“Make sure your employees feel comfortable and safe with you,” she says. “If they don’t feel they can trust you or that you care, they won’t be open to talking to you.”
Even with a strong rapport, it can be challenging to understand how your colleagues truly feel about their roles, work, and relationships — especially for your remote employees. Asking the right questions in focused one-on-one settings is key, says Steven Rogelberg, Chancellor’s Professor at the University of North Carolina Charlotte and author of Glad We Met: The Art and Science of 1:1 Meetings.
“What we missed during the pandemic was connection and feeling seen by those critical to our success and careers,” he says. “We missed having conversations that matter.”
To make sure you’re in tune with your people, here are six questions our experts suggest to go beyond surface-level interactions.
1. How are you showing up today on a scale of 1-10?
The trouble with perfunctory questions like “How’s life?” is that they often lead to superficial responses like “fine” or “good.” But asking team members to rate their current state on a numerical scale invites a more deliberate form of self-assessment, says Rogelberg. This is particularly important for remote workers who may feel isolated and less connected. If someone ranks themselves a four, for instance, the follow-up question, “What factors are contributing to that score?” becomes a gateway to reflection and deeper understanding.
“Maybe someone is wrestling with a tough project or dealing with stuff at home,” he says. “Asking follow-up questions can help you learn things you might not find out otherwise.”
One word to the wise, however. Before launching into this conversation, set a tone of genuine concern and compassion, says Seppälä. Make eye contact, use a warm voice, and signal that you’re present. “Let them know this conversation is for them and that you care for them as a human first, employee second.”
2. What’s something you’re excited about right now outside of work?
This question might not reveal how your colleagues feel about their jobs, per se, but it does help you build personal connections by uncovering common interests and exploring differences. “Getting to know your team members as people with lives outside of work takes time and trust,” says Rogelberg. “But building this foundation is worthwhile because it makes it easier for people to talk about concerns later on.”
Stay within your colleague’s comfort zone; if someone is hesitant to share, don’t press. “As you gain their trust, they may feel more comfortable opening up,” he says.
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December 18, 2024
Mohenjo
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The vagus nerve is a vine of nerve fibers with roots in nearly every organ and shoots in the brain. It helps us detect a racing heart, rising blood pressure, stomachache, discomfort, an overzealous immune system and even alarm calls from microbes in our gut. When it senses trouble, the vagus helps to steady our heart, soothe our stomach, rein in our immune system and calm us down.
Wellness influencers claim we can ice, tone or zap the vagus nerve to fix almost anything—long COVID, headaches, poor memory, extra pounds, the blues. Much of that hype is unfounded. Still, some research on the vagus nerve is intriguing enough—and promising enough—to draw serious scientific attention.
Investigators have long known that activating the vagus with mild electrical pulses can treat some conditions. In 1997 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) device that can be surgically implanted under the collarbone and linked to a wire wrapped around the nerve. It is widely used to treat cases of epilepsy that do not respond to drugs. In 2005 the FDA certified a similar device for treatment-resistant depression, and the agency approved yet another one in 2021 to speed up recovery from stroke. Gadgets that stimulate the vagus nerve from outside the body, such as at the outer ear or neck, have been cleared in many countries, including the U.S., to treat obesity, pain, and migraines.
Signaling confidence in the potential of VNS, the National Institutes of Health Common Fund launched a $250-million initiative in 2015 with a second phase in 2022. The program, called SPARC (for Stimulating Peripheral Activity to Relieve Conditions), seeks to map the nerve’s individual fibers and circuits and to illuminate their functions. Scientists hope it will enable them to refine existing treatments and find new therapies for other conditions, ranging from inflammatory bowel disease to long COVID. Clinical trials are underway on so-called transcutaneous VNS (tVNS) devices, which are easier to use because they access the vagus from outside the skin, or cutaneous barrier. These tools potentially could be used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, migraine, lupus and chronic fatigue syndrome—and that’s just a partial list.
“A truly revolutionary idea can take 20 to 40 years before it’s thoroughly adopted,” says neurosurgeon Kevin J. Tracey of the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research in Manhasset, N.Y., “at which point everyone says how we needed that all along.” The vagus vine’s power may be partly mythical, and the research on it is by no means conclusive or clear. But some scientists say it offers hope for millions suffering from complex, hard-to-treat conditions.
In 1664 English neuroanatomist Thomas Willis named the longest of the brain’s nerves the vagus, Latin for “wandering.” “We call it the vagus nerve, singular, but there are actually two, one on each side of your body,” Tracey says. Each side has up to 100,000 fibers, and each fiber contributes to a specific function: heart rate, breathing, immunity, gut contractions that help to digest food, even speech. About 80 percent of vagal nerve fibers are afferent, reporting to the brain about the state of the body; the rest are efferent, carrying instructions down from the brain. British physiologist Walter Holbrook Gaskell demonstrated in the late 19th century that afferent signals tend to excite, whereas efferent ones quiet.
The first person to zap the vagus with an electric current, using something like a tuning fork pressed against the neck, was American neurologist James Leonard Corning in the 1880s. He was trying to reduce blood flow to the brain to cure epilepsy, but his idea failed. A century later, however, neuroscientist Jacob Zabara of Temple University in Philadelphia found that directly applying an electrical signal to the nerve in a canine could disrupt irregular brain activity, thereby reducing seizures. In 1988 neurologist James Kiffin Penry and neurosurgeon William Bell became the first to implant a VNS device into a human to treat epilepsy.
When the vagus nerve brings news of dangerous inflammation in the body, the brain sends down signals to soothe it.
The VNS device currently used for epilepsy, which delivers a pulse every few minutes, is a direct descendant of Zabara’s invention. A pivotal study demonstrated that it cut the frequency of seizures by 45 percent on average after a year. It is believed to work mainly by stimulating the afferent fibers, the ones leading up to the brain.
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Noemi Fabra
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December 18, 2024
Mohenjo
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Most astronomers would love to find a planet, but Mike Brown may be the only one proud of having killed one. Thanks to his research, Pluto, the solar system’s ninth planet, was removed from the pantheon—and the public cried foul. How can you revise our childhoods? How can you mess around with our planetariums?
About 10 years ago Brown’s daughter—then around 10 years old—suggested one way he could seek redemption: go find another planet. “When she said that, I kind of laughed,” Brown says. “In my head, I was like, ‘That’s never happening.’”
Yet Brown may now be on the brink of fulfilling his daughter’s wish. Evidence he and others have gathered over the past decade suggests something strange is happening in the outer solar system: distant subplanetary objects are being found on orbits that look sculpted, arranged by an unseen gravitational force. According to Brown, that force is coming from a ninth planet—one bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune.
Nobody has found Planet Nine yet. If it’s really out there, it’s too far and too faint for almost any existing telescope to spot it. But that’s about to change. A new telescope, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, is about to open its mechanical eyes. When it does, it should catch millions of previously undetected celestial phenomena, from distant supernovae to near-Earth asteroids—and, crucially, tens of thousands of new objects around and beyond Pluto.
If Brown’s hidden world is real, Rubin will almost certainly find it or strong indirect evidence that it exists. “In the first year or two, we’re going to answer that question,” says Megan Schwamb, a planetary astronomer at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland—and, just maybe, the solar system will once again have a ninth planet.
Pluto was discovered in 1930 and always seemed to be a lonely planet on the fringes of the solar system. But in the early 2000s skywatchers found out that Pluto had company: other rime-coated worlds much like it were popping up in surveys of that benighted frontier. And in 2005, using California’s Palomar Observatory, Brown—an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology—and two of his colleagues spied a far-flung orb that would change the way we perceive the solar system.
That orb was Eris. It was remarkably distant—68 times as far from the sun as Earth. But at roughly 1,500 miles in diameter, it was just a little larger than Pluto. “The day I found Eris and did the calculation about how big it might be, I was like, ‘Okay, that’s it. Game’s up,’” Brown says. Either Eris was going to become a new planet, or Pluto wasn’t what we thought.
Finding a ninth planet would be huge. Such a discovery could change what we know about our solar system’s past.
In 2006 officials at the International Astronomical Union decided that to qualify as a planet, a body must orbit a star, must be sufficiently massive for gravity to squish it into a sphere, and must have a clear orbit. Pluto, which shares its orbital neighborhood with a fleet of other, more modest objects, failed to overcome the third hurdle. Pluto became a “dwarf planet”—but its demotion didn’t make it, or its fellow distant companions, any less beguiling to astronomers.
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Ron Miller
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December 18, 2024
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If you think the world is changing faster than ever before, you’re probably right. According to Accenture, the rate of change in businesses has accelerated 183% since 2019—and 33% in just the last year. As the saying goes, change has never been this fast, and will never be this slow again.
Hybrid workplaces, AI transformation, global conflicts, and increased polarization have all contributed to the breakneck pace of change. It’s not surprising many leaders are experiencing whiplash. A staggering 71% of CEOs suffer from imposter syndrome, as they’re being required to tackle challenges they’ve never been trained for.
With so much change in the business world, which issues will rise to the forefront for leaders in 2025? Here are four leadership trends to watch.
Leadership trend: Continue to invest in DEI but call it something else
With the recent election of Donald Trump as U.S. President, many are worried that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives will come under even more intense fire than they did following the 2023 Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action.
Although these concerns are valid, it’s important to recognize that not all organizations slashed their DEI budgets in response to the Supreme Court ruling. In a 2024 Littler survey, 57% of executives said their organizations expanded their DEI commitments, and 36% have maintained their efforts, while just 1% reported a significant decrease. DEI spending isn’t growing at the same explosive rate as in 2020, but it’s still growing.
Because of legal concerns and political backlash, however, many firms maintaining or expanding their DEI commitments have started calling it something else. For example, “inclusive leadership,” or just good leadership. We predict this leadership trend will increase in 2025, with DEI woven into the fabric of leadership rather than considered a separate concept.
According to the NeuroLeadership Institute’s DEI Impact Case, there are three actions organizations can take to maintain their investments in DEI, no matter what they’re calling it:
- Prioritize diversity by aligning it with specific business goals.
- Habituate inclusion through targeted learning and performance tools that integrate it into daily practices.
- Systemize equity by examining policies and procedures to embed and sustain fairness throughout.
With a science-based approach, leaders can build DEI programs that are legally compliant and strategically beneficial, as well as being the right thing to do.
Leadership trend: Decide on hybrid work
In the past few months, several large organizations have announced that their employees will soon be required to return to the office five days per week. In the third quarter of 2024, 33% of companies required workers to be in the office for five days, up from 31% in the second quarter. Notably, this ends a streak over the previous five quarters, when the rate had steadily fallen.
We think that 2025 will be a year of reckoning for companies to make a long-term decision on hybrid work. After experimenting with flexible remote policies for the past five years, many organizations are going to double down on where and how they want their employees to work—and face the consequences, one way or the other.
Although it may seem logical to go back to the office full-time, research suggests clear advantages to a hybrid workplace. For example, a study published in the journal Nature in 2024 showed that hybrid work at the company Trip.com did not affect productivity or performance—but it did reduce the quit rate by one-third, saving millions of dollars on recruitment and training.
Our research indicates that, although connections among colleagues often increase when everyone’s in the same building, other connections—with leaders, employers, and roles—can suffer, causing return-to-office policies to backfire. That’s one reason we recommend a four-part approach to hybrid work that maximizes the benefits of time together while preserving employees’ sense of autonomy.
Leadership trend: More caution about AI
The first wave of GenAI implementation was characterized by broad enthusiasm and hype. Leaders saw opportunities to revolutionize the way they do business, eliminating monotonous tasks while providing data-driven insights, increasing efficiency, and boosting innovation. In the second wave, they began experimenting with GenAI and implementing it on a wide scale within their organizations.
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December 17, 2024
Mohenjo
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Climbing rates of colon and rectal cancer among people under 50 years old is a striking recent trend that has alarmed and puzzled clinicians racing to figure out why. Now a new study published in Gut offers what might be a crucial insight: specific lipids, or fatty acids, that are abundantly found in ultra-processed foods may be promoting inflammation that causes cancerous colon cells to run amok.
Colorectal cancer tumor samples from 81 people in the U.S. had excessive amounts of inflammation-boosting lipids, called omega-6 fatty acids—and lacked helpful lipids called omega-3 fatty acids, which help stop inflammation.
Inflammation is a normal defensive response that the immune system switches on to heal wounds or fight off infection. But researchers in the 1800s found that colon tumors under a microscope looked like “poorly healed wounds,” says Timothy Yeatman, a co-author of the study and a professor of surgery at the University of South Florida. Rampant inflammation over long periods of time damages cells and hampers their ability to fight potentially cancerous cell growth. Omega-6 fatty acids often come from our diet, and Yeatman suspects ultraprocessed food is likely a major source of them.
“We don’t know the full effects of these ultraprocessed foods on our body, but we do know that that’s a major thing that’s changed from 1950 onward,” Yeatman says. “Young people today, particularly rural and impoverished people, are being exposed to more of these processed foods than anybody else because they’re cheap and they’re in all the fast-food restaurants.”
Many ultraprocessed foods and fast foods are prepared with seed oil—a cheap, common type of vegetable-based cooking oil that is chemically processed from seeds such as canola (rapeseed), corn, grapeseed, and sunflower. These oils contain high amounts of omega-6 fatty acids. The study was not able to definitively connect the lipids detected in the colon cancer tumors to any specific food or oil, however.
“I think the study confirms that diet is important but probably one of many factors,” says Andrew Chan, a gastroenterologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, who was not involved in the new research. Chan and other researchers note that genetics, exercise, lifestyle, and chemical or environmental exposures may influence colon cancer risk, too. Additionally, “there’s a lot of complexity to the food we eat, how it’s converted, how it’s metabolized, and how it might eventually lead to tissue changes around things like lipids,” Chan says. “So there are still some pieces that need to be filled in before we can really tell a cohesive story about it.”
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