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The paleo diet promotes eating the foods our ancient ancestors did: grass fed meats and fish, fresh fruits and veggies, eggs, nuts and seeds. The plan cuts out processed sugars and salt, refined vegetable oils (like canola, safflower and soybean), legumes (including peanuts) and dairy.
Omer Yilmaz’s work on how diet influences intestinal stem cells could lead to new ways to treat or prevent gastrointestinal cancers.
Every three to five days, all of the cells lining the human intestine are replaced. That constant replenishment of cells helps the intestinal lining withstand the damage caused by food passing through the digestive tract.
This rapid turnover of cells relies on intestinal stem cells, which give rise to all of the other types of cells found in the intestine. Recent research has shown that those stem cells are heavily influenced by diet, which can help keep them healthy or stimulate them to become cancerous.
“Low-calorie diets such as fasting and caloric restriction can have antiaging effects and antitumor effects, and we want to understand why that is. On the other hand, diets that lead to obesity can promote diseases of aging, such as cancer,” says Omer Yilmaz, associate professor of biology at
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