Dr. Victoria Sampson

Yes.

And it's that specific oral bacteria, so the Fusobacterium nucleatum, which has been shown to accelerate tumor growth within mice, but also for colorectal cancer and breast cancer as well.

I wouldn't yet say causal.

I think that for most cancers, it is multifactorial.

And there are a lot of things that can

whether or not you get the cancer and how aggressive the cancer is.

I do think that oral health and some specific oral bacteria are risk factors and can definitely increase the aggression of those cancers or even the initiation of them.

Um, there's also been research, and I think I'm waiting for the research to be published, on what they're doing is they've created a antibiotic which only kills that oral bacteria that I was talking about, so Fusobacterium nucleatum.

And they are going to be issuing that...

antibiotic to those patients who have the colorectal cancer, which has the oral bacteria, to see whether or not it slows down their progression or improves their prognosis.

So if I see those results and it shows it, then there's for sure a strong causative link between the two.

But for now, I would say that it's multifactorial and it's definitely a risk factor.

Yeah.

Uh, multiple things.

Poor oral hygiene.

Um, some of us genetically will have higher levels of it.

Um, it's what we eat, it's who we're kissing, it's what we're breathing in.

So we'll have to see.

And that's the thing.

That's the beauty of being able to test these things now is that you can actually see.