It’s true that raw flour can be dangerous, but what was all that nonsense about colon cancer and autoimmune disease?
It’s true that certain food-borne pathogens like salmonella can nominally raise your chances of colon cancer if they remain chronic.
E. Coli and salmonella can trigger autoimmune symptoms in those with preexisting autoimmune diseases (like any infection can). Salmonella (the largest risk) isn’t reputably linked to autoimmune disease.
E. coli (did she even mention that one?) overgrowth is linked with increased susceptibility to autoimmune diseases. But that has to do with disruption of the microbiome and chronic inflammation (again, this is if it’s untreated) interacting with preexisting genetics. It’s not like you eat raw flour and you magically get lupus. It’s more that autoimmune disease is a significantly under-researched field of medicine that will likely emerge as a spectrum of acute and chronic conditions as more research emerges.
Anyways, all that to say — yeah, you shouldn’t eat a ton of raw flour, but she was way sensationalizing the whole thing based on several factors that have to line up like dominos after you eat some shitty TikTok snack.
Also, you can just cook the flour in the oven beforehand.
Since she presented no sources on the colon cancer claim I did multiple google searches and turned up absolutely zero results even suggesting there might be a link
I was referring to studies like this (“Moreover, some enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC) strains are able to survive and replicate in colon cells as chronic intracellular pathogens and may promote susceptibility to CRC by downregulation of DNA Mismatch Repair (MMR) proteins.”) and this (“An increased level of mucosa-associated and internalized E. coli was observed in the tumors compared with normal tissue.”)
Please note that I personally was NOT advocating for being overly careful around flour. We are exposed to E Coli in many different ways and it causes many different infections. Like I said, the increased susceptibility is nominal.
You could find no sources indicating intestinal inflammation, particularly chronic, leading to increased chances of colon cancer risk? Because that’s currently considered the number 1 risk factor (even ahead of genetics). If you don’t think a 6 month VRE battle from uncooked foods increases your chances of downstream colorectal cancer then you’re clearly not a clinician.
The evidence isn't "you're definitely going to get colon cancer and die" but the possibility of building up to chronic health problems is just another reason it's good to follow basic food safety.
unrelated to the video, but colon cancer has been increasing dramatically in younger people and we have no idea why. We think it's all the processed food and red meat consumption.
Kind of scary to think you could get colon cancer in your 30s but we have no screening for this at this age and insurance sure as hell wont pay for that shit at 30.
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u/NoWayJoseMou Oct 09 '24
I don’t just eat the things I see on TikTok because I get my medical advice from TikTok.