Treating liver cancer with antibiotics?

Obesity is one of the most prevalent health concerns over the past few decades. Besides diabetes and cardiovascular disease, obesity is also connected to multiple types of cancers^1,2. However, the mechanism underlying obesity-related cancers is unclear. Previous research found that obesity alters the microbiota grown in the gastrointestinal tract³, where the microbes produce inflammatory metabolites⁴. And obesity-induced inflammation is involved in liver cancer⁵. Recently, Yoshimoto et al. uncovered the missing link, by which obesity promotes the production of pro-inflammatory and carcinogenic bile acids via shaping gut microbiota, and leads to hepatic inflammation and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)⁶(Figure 1).