Occupational Exposure to Endotoxins: A Good Thing?
In the newest edition of the journal Cancer Causes and Control you'll find a paper titled "Endotoxin Exposure and Lung Cancer Risk: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Published Literature on Agriculture and Cotton Textile Workers". The authors examined 28 studies of workers occupationally exposed to high levels of endotoxins and their risk of developing lung cancer. Previous studies had suggested acute and chronic lung conditions could be caused by endotoxins.
Interestingly, endotoxin exposure was consistently associated with a large and statistically significant decrease in lung cancer. Furthermore, the protective effect was strengthened as dose was increased.
Also this month, in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, you'll find "Lower Risk of Lung Cancer After Multiple Pneumonia Diagnoses". It turns out that getting pneumonia three or more times is even better than high exposure to endotoxins if you want to avoid lung cancer.
What is it about these biological challenges to the lung that leads to significant anti-lung cancer protective effect? It's anyone's guess but perhaps keeping your immune system tuned up is part of the answer.
