Step 1: Some of the things that I’ve learned this term that are most interesting would probably be the areas concerning gut health, probably because this is mostly what we’ve focused on. Specifically, I really liked how cancer could potentially be caused by the microbes in our stomach. I also enjoyed the studies about mice and how differing microbiomes could influence their body fat mass. Recently, I have also found it interesting that take a simple vitamin supplement such as probiotics could really change a person’s gut potentially. I also think the fecal transplant stuff is kinda cool. I wrote about HPV and cervical cancer for the midterm essays, that was cool but I feel like I’m kinda tired of that subject now. It’s interesting how antibiotics really effect gut health and how it can take so long for it to recover. It also seems like gut health really has an impact on the body overall. The new stuff with skin dysbiosis and whatnot is kind of intriguing, but perhaps not as much as the older stuff to me.
Step 3: Specifically, I really liked how cancer could potentially be caused by the microbes in our stomach. I’ve always been really fascinated by cancer. In school, however, I have always been taught that cancer is simply something that happens by chance or from constant exposure to carcinogens such as cigarettes or red meat. When I first started the class I found this topic something that I looked forward to. I still think I really like it, and kind of think I’ll pursue it further. The studies that we read about make a lot of sense with how inflammation causes cells to divide and whatnot. This seems like something I should probably look into more. My parents both had cancer, so I’m a little worried about it myself even though its not genetic. Or… perhaps it can be? What if their microbiome was something that caused their cancer? They didn’t have gut cancer or anything, but maybe that could be passed down to me? I’m not too sure about that so I should probably stay on track with just the gut microbiome area.
Step 4: After reviewing my responses, I clearly should follow what interests me and pursue how microbes can cause cancer even further. To prepare for this, I should probably start finding research articles that could somehow show this. I am not entirely sure what I will find, since in class we only did stomach microbiomes. I’m not sure if I’ll find other parts of the body microbiome research and if thats associated with cancer as well, but I think just typing in key words of what I want is a good place to start.
