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Don’t feed the anxiety monster 👹

How to become more anxious about something 101:

  • Think about it.
  • Think about how truly bad it will be should it play out.
  • Then try to avoid thinking about it as it’s making you anxious.

Things could go terribly wrong, but chances are they won’t. Sometimes they do but those are the exceptions not the rule.

Reasoning with anxiety works in your more rational moments but during an anxiety attack, it’s a terrible idea as your not being rational in the moment. Set the problem aside and move on to other things for now.

Dewelling on the problem in your mind is only going to make it worse, even if you are trying to suppress the thought. Take deep breath, accept it for what it is, and just move on. When you are anxious you aren’t paying attention to other important things and your more likely to overlook other critical things – that could cause actual harm or problems.

They say, your problems are all in your head. And many of them are. It’s that simple and you focus on other things you can make your life better.

Colon Cancer Is on the Rise in Young People—Is a Bacterial Toxin to Blame?

Colon Cancer Is on the Rise in Young People—Is a Bacterial Toxin to Blame?

Colibactin is produced by bacteria commonly found in the digestive system, including certain types of E. coli. About 20% of healthy people—and even some 31% of babies—have colibactin-producing E. coli in their guts, previous studies estimate.67

The toxin is known to damage DNA, and previous studies have suggested that colibactin-related mutations contribute to some cases of colorectal cancer.8

Dziubańska-Kusibab PJ, Berger H, Battistini F, et al. Colibactin DNA-damage signature indicates mutational impact in colorectal cancer. Nat Med. 2020;26(7):1063-1069. doi:10.1038/s41591-020-0908-2 But Ludmil Alexandrov, PhD, a professor of cellular and molecular medicine at the University of California, San Diego and senior author of the new study, didn’t set out to research colibactin specifically.

Originally, his team wanted to understand why people in different countries develop colorectal cancer at different rates. They genetically analyzed almost 1,000 colorectal cancer samples from people living in 11 countries to compare and contrast them.

“We did find some results which were country-specific,” Alexandrov said. “But actually, the thing that we found most exciting was this colibactin result.”

Alexandrov’s team found that DNA mutations associated with colibactin were 3.3 times more common in cancers diagnosed before age 40, compared to those diagnosed after age 70. They estimated that colibactin exposures likely happened early in study participants’ lives—probably before their 10th birthdays.

The results suggest that colibactin exposure could “put children on a trajectory for developing colorectal cancer 20 or 30 years earlier [than normal]—so instead of getting it at the age of 60 or 70, they’re getting it at the age of 30 or 40,” Alexandrov explained.