Footy star Josh Addo-Carr has stood himself down for the upcoming Bulldogs final with Manly after allegedly returning a positive drug test during a roadside check over the weekend.

The 29-year-old Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs winger was stopped by police and allegedly returned a positive test result for cocaine while driving on Friday night, though the clubs has refuted this.

The NRL star hasn’t been charged, with further analysis needed on the test first.

Bulldogs boss Phil Gould explained that the superstar winger believes he is innocent, but has put the team first by stepping down.

‘Josh vehemently defends himself here,’ Gould said on Tuesday morning.

‘However, Josh has made the decision to stand himself down, to put the team first.

‘I want to emphasize that Josh believes he is completely innocent.

‘He can’t understand how he tested positive to this roadside test.’

Addo-Carr told the Bulldogs about the incident, but there is some confusion about the situation with boss Phil Gould stating initially that the test came back ‘negative’. 

On Tuesday morning it emerged that the Bulldogs are ready to stand Addo-Carr down for their elimination final this weekend against Manly – and will meet with him on Tuesday to discuss the matter.

Nine’s NRL journalist Danny Weidler posted on X: ‘From all the information I’ve been able to gather to this point … I expect Josh Addo Carr to be stood down by the Bulldogs later today’.

The news comes after Gould posted a message to social media defending the Canterbury flyer on Monday.

‘In response to circulating rumours and now several media inquiries regarding Josh Addo-Carr,’ Gould posted on X.

Josh Addo-Carr (pictured) is set to be stood down after after allegedly failing a roadside drug test over the weekend

The Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs winger was stopped by police and allegedly returned a positive test result while driving on Friday night

‘On Friday evening Josh was pulled over and subjected to a random roadside drug test. The test results were negative and Josh was allowed to continue on his way. Happens to all of us at some stage on the roads. It’s the Police keeping the community safe. We appreciate their work.

‘There is absolutely no truth to rumours that Josh had any issue. None whatsoever. Enjoy your finals football everyone.’

On Monday night, Gould said Addo-Carr had informed the club about the matter on Saturday, but said the winger had explained to him that the drug test was inconclusive.

It was only on Monday when the club received calls about the issue that they found out he had allegedly returned a positive sample.

‘He came in and reported it to us the next morning, but the way it was reported to us, he was very dismissive of it,’ Gould said on 100% Footy.

‘That there was no drama, he hadn’t tested positive to anything, they had allowed him to drive home.

‘What Josh thought was because he went and did the second test and they allowed him to go, he thought it was negative.

The Bulldogs found out on Monday that the winger had returned a positive test result

‘I’m not saying Josh was deliberately misrepresenting, that was his interpretation of events. The police have a different interpretation.’

On Tuesday morning, Gould said he ‘was very disappointed’ about the situation

‘I’ll have my recommendations about how I think the week should go forward. It’s a very, very important week,’ Gould said on the Today Show.

‘I’m very disappointed… we need to make a decision today to work out… what we’re doing with Josh this week in particular, so the team can get on with its preparation.

‘I’ll hold a press conference at 11am this morning at Belmore. I’ll meet with the chairman and the CEO and the coach this morning, and we’ll make a decision.’

Gould was then asked by show host Karl Stefanovic if Addo-Carr lied.

‘There’s obviously inconsistencies in his story and what he explained to us on Monday morning,’ Gould replied.

‘It may have been Josh’s interpretation of events, but it’s now very inconsistent with what the police report has. We haven’t spoken to police. Nor have police spoken to us.

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The club will meet with Addo-Carr on Tuesday to decide the next move

‘I understand police spoke to NRL Integrity and they spoke to our CEO yesterday and they’ve sort of backed up what the press statement said yesterday.’

News Corp’s NRL reporter Phil Rothfield spoke about the issue on NRL360 on Monday evening, saying Gould has been embarrassed by the incident.

‘(Addo-Carr) met with Gus on Monday afternoon and he could be slightly embarrassed by it,’ he said.

‘(Gould) put out a tweet saying everything was sweet because he hadn’t failed a test.’

‘There is enormous confusion over it in that Josh Addo-Carr when he told the Bulldogs, even if he didn’t say that he tested positive, they informed the integrity unit on Saturday.

‘They have been keeping an eye on it for 48 hours. The other interesting thing is Josh Addo-Carr has taken himself off to his own doctor today to get a third test done.’

Addo-Carr has had an unlucky couple of seasons with ongoing injury concerns.

He was again sidelined during the Bulldog’s defeat to the Cowboys on the weekend with an injury to his leg.

The NRL are yet to comment on the situation. 

Dramatic bodycam footage has emerged of the moment Dolphins star Tyreek Hill was detained by cops and pinned to the ground near Hard Rock Stadium.

The wide receiver was placed in handcuffs while driving to the Dolphins’ season opener against the Jacksonville Jaguars. ‘Take me to jail, brother. Do what you have to do,’ Hill told the officers.

Cops could then be heard telling Hill to ‘stop crying’ after dragging him out of his car and forcing him face down on to the road. 

‘When we tell you to do something, you do it. You understand? Not what you want, what we tell you. You’re a little f****** confused,’ an officer told him.

A Florida police union claimed that Hill was driving dangerously when he was pulled over in Miami on Sunday and that he was cuffed after refusing to cooperate. Hill said he has ‘no idea’ what sparked his detainment.

Dramatic bodycam footage has emerged of the moment Dolphins star Tyreek Hill was detained

The Miami wide receiver was dragged out of his luxury car by an officer after being pulled over

Hill’s agent, Drew Rosenhaus, claims the receiver was cited for reckless driving and driving without a license. 

On Monday, a remarkable three-minute clip of the scene appeared, with Hill claiming ‘it went from 0 to 60 immediately’.

He told NBC: ‘If I wasn’t Tyreek Hill, Lord knows… worst-case scenario, I would have been shot or would have been locked up’.

At the start of the bodycam footage, police approached Hill’s car. The receiver appeared to hand over his license before telling the cop to ‘do what you got to do.’ 

The 30-year-old then put his window up, prompting officers to tap on the car and tell Hill: ‘Hey, keep that window down!’

‘Keep your window down or I’m going to get you out of the car. As a matter of fact, get out of the car,’ one officer told Hill before another warned the receiver: ‘We’ll break that freaking window.’ 

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Hill was soon pinned to the floor and warned: ‘When we tell you to do something, you do it’

The officers led the Miami wide receiver to the sidewalk as his teammates showed up

A few seconds later, Hill was told: ‘We’re not playing this car, get out!’ An officer then opened the driver-side door and grabbed Hill. 

‘I’m getting out!’ the football star pleaded before a cop put his hand towards Hill’s neck and dragged him out of the car. ‘Get out, GET OUT. What part of that do you not understand?’

As Hill lay on the road, a cop put his knee on the receiver’s back and then grabbed the NFL star’s hands. ‘Too late! Too late!’ the officer shouted as Hill tried to claim he was getting out of the car.

The wide receiver told NBC that he called team security from the car and he could later be heard speaking on the phone – seemingly to Rosenhaus.

‘Hey Drew I’m getting arrested, I’m getting arrested!’ the wide receiver shouted as officers detained him.

When Hill then told cops to take him to jail, they responded: ‘We are. We will. It is good. Don’t worry brother, I’m going to hang up the phone. Stop crying.’

The 30-year-old questioned the officers’ conduct, claiming they were ‘beating on my window like you crazy’. 

‘The dude was beating on my window like he crazy. I ain’t do nothing to him,’ Hill insisted

Hill celebrated his 80-yard touchdown on Sunday by reenacting being put in handcuffs

Moments later, a car – carrying one of Hill’s teammates – pulled up. ‘What’s going on, bro?’ the receiver was asked. ‘The dude was beating on my window like he crazy. I ain’t do nothing to him,’ he responded.

The 30-year-old was soon led to the sidewalk and forced to sit on the ground by two cops. ‘I just had surgery on my knee!’ Hill screamed. ‘Chill bro! Chill bro!’

An officer then responded sarcastically: ‘Really? What a coincidence… you could have surgery on your ears when we told you to put your window down.’

Meanwhile the other car stopped nearby. ‘Back up!’ they were warmed while a man – believed to be Dolphins tackle Calais Campbell – could be seen with his hands up. ‘Call Drew!’ Hill shouted repeatedly as sirens sounded.

Another man – believed to be Miami tight end Jonnu Smith pleaded his innocence when confronted by cops: ‘I’m not doing anything! I’m not doing nothing.’

Smith was on the phone, apparently telling Rosenhaus: ‘They got Tyreek, the cops are over here beating on him.’ Cops then warned him to move his car or he would be issued a ticket, too.

The Dolphins receiver pictured with wife Keeta, whom he married in November of last year

Hill was released a few minutes later. Remarkably, he went on to play for the Dolphins and score an 80-yard touchdown that helped Miami rally for a 20-17 win. The wideout celebrated the score by mimicking being handcuffed.  

Campbell later revealed that he was also put in handcuffs. ‘I was like “What is going on?” I didn’t understand what the issue was, for him to put handcuffs on me.’ 

He added: ‘That was a first, 17 years in this game. I saw Tyreek getting apprehended. I just wanted to make sure everything was ok, try to deescalate the situation. Officer felt a certain kind of way and put handcuffs on me.’

Hill paid tribute to his teammates who came to his side, telling NBC: ‘I didn’t feel alone anymore… they ended up handcuffing Calais for just being 6ft 8in I think. 

‘But it was crazy. It was crazy how that same officer who took me down handcuffed Calais for just standing on the side.’

The 30-year-old accused one officer of being on a ‘power trip’. ‘He felt like he just needed to… do something that day. I’m glad nobody was hurt.’

Another shocking clip even appeared to show an officer striking Hill on the sidewalk after he was detained, which led to accusations of racism from appalled fans on social media. 

Amid the outrage, Miami-Dade Police revealed that an officer has been placed on administrative duties pending an internal investigation. 

Defensive lineman Calais Campbell said he was also detained outside Hard Rock Stadium 

After facing the Jaguars, Hill broke his silence on the ordeal. ‘I don’t want to bring race into it, but sometimes it gets kind of iffy when you do,’ Hill said, via ESPN, following the game. ‘What if I wasn’t Tyreek Hill? Lord knows what that guy or guys would have done. 

‘I was just making sure that I was doing what my uncle always told me to do whenever you’re in a situation like that: “Just listen, put your hands on the steering wheel and just listen.”‘  

According to the president of the South Florida Police Benevolent Association, police only pulled over the NFL star because he was endangering other drivers on the road, while he was cuffed after refusing to comply with instructions. 

In a statement to TMZ Sports, the SFLPBA alleges that Hill put ‘himself and others in great risk of danger’ by driving recklessly on his way to Miami’s stadium.

The statement then continues: ‘Mr. Hill was not immediately cooperative with the officers on scene who, pursuant to policy and for their immediate safety, placed Mr. Hill in handcuffs. 

‘Mr. Hill, still uncooperative, refused to sit on the ground and was therefore redirected to the ground. Once the situation was sorted out within a few minutes. Mr. Hill was issued two traffic citations and was free to leave.’

The SFLPBA concluded its statement by adding that it stands ‘with the actions of our officers’ but ‘looks forward to further open communication moving forward.’

Tech giant Apple’s annual launch event served up another year’s worth of new iterations for its iPhone and Apple Watch product lines Monday, with a medical twist.

The special Apple event, broadcast from the company’s Steve Jobs Theater, showed off the newer and bigger-than-ever iPhone, iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max, which verges on the size of a tablet computer, and a thinner-than-ever Apple Watch, the Series 10. 

But in between the lines, the event revealed much about the company’s plans to expand their tech empire into the $518 billion medical device market — with AirPods that double as hearing aids and an Apple Watch feature that will track sleep apnea.

Apple’s stock price, however, slipped over 1 percent ahead of the event — a sign of its rocky year facing strong competition from rival mobile-maker Samsung and the weak launch of its much-hyped, but less appreciated VR headset the Vision Pro.

Pending authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration and other global health authorities, Apple hopes to have Apple Watch Series 10’s fitness trackers soon alerting its owner to a common breathing issue with their sleep – via a new sleep apnea detection feature

Some industry observers speculated that the annual event, which has been typically held on a Tuesday, may have been strategically moved ahead to avoid becoming drowned out of the news cycle by the upcoming US presidential debate.

The Monday timeslot may have also been an attempt to distance the upbeat event — dubbed ‘Glowtime’ — from an awaited ruling from the European Commission that could see Apple being forced to pay $14 billion in back taxes.

With these clouds looming over the company, Apple’s latest business strategy to revive sales, maintain its industry dominance and reputation as an innovator, appears to be a headlong move into medical tech.

Its latest AirPod ear bud updates, for example, offered a variety of surprising innovations both to protect and to assist its users’ hearing.

AirPod Pro 2 through the new AirPod Pro 4 will feature noise reduction technology to provide hearing protection, with the devices also becoming able to perform a clinical hearing test in just five minutes to check its user’s hearing health 

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AirPod Pro 2 through the new AirPod Pro 4 will feature noise reduction technology to provide hearing protection, with the devices also becoming able to perform a clinical hearing test in just five minutes to check its user’s hearing health.

‘After you take a hearing test, your AirPods Pro are transformed into a personalized hearing aid,’ one Apple VP put it, ‘hosting the specific sounds you need in real time.’ 

And the results, according to the company, will be stored ‘privately and securely’ in the Health app along with the rest of your health data.

But the company still devoted time to its flagship mobile gadgets. Below are some of the key new features and design innovations they promised for the new iPhone 16 and the Apple Watch Series 10.   

Apple’s new iPhone 16 will come in much more pastel and vibrant colors than previous models

Above, comparisons of the new iPhone 16 with the most recent, past Apple iPhone models

What’s new in the iPhone 16?

One of the iPhone 16’s most obvious improvements, to the average consumer, will be its new and improved camera equipment. 

There’s a new 48MP fusion camera for iPhone 16 Pro that will boast a 2nd generation quad-pixel sensor to capture information faster. Pro phones will also get a 12MP telephoto lens with 5x zoom. 

In other words, unlike the iPhone 15 Pro models, now both the 16 Pro and the 16 Pro Max will get a high-performance tetraprism telephoto camera capable of long-distance, high quality photography.

The phones’ New Photographic Styles will also allow you to edit on the go more easily: adjusting color, highlights and shadows on skin tone in your images; or selecting specific areas in an image to only adjust the appearance of one section.

This year, the company’s iconic flagship mobile phones will also have slightly bigger screens, making them record-setting and almost iPad tablet sized: 6.3 inches for the iPhone 16 Pro and 6.9 inches for the iPhone 16 Pro Max. (For comparison, the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max were 6.1 inches and 6.7 inches, respectively.)

There’s a new 48MP fusion camera for iPhone 16 Pro. Pro phones will also get a 12MP telephoto lens with 5x zoom. So, unlike the iPhone 15 Pro models, now both the 16 Pro and the 16 Pro Max will get a high-performance tetraprism telephoto camera

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Under the hood, the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max will be powered by an A18 Pro chip, with a 16-core neural engine that Apple said will offer ‘amazing performance’ to help power its branded artificial Intelligence features: Apple Intelligence.

That souped-up hardware, they said, promises 15-percent faster performance than the iPhone 15 Pro as well as improved graphics performance, delivered via a six-core GPU that is 20 percent faster than last year’s iPhone.

In a departure from iPhone’s recent history — where its color choices seemed pitched towards austere elegance — iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus will also come in bold pastels, ultramarine, teal, and pink, as well as more no-nonsense black or white.

The iPhone 16 Pro starts at $999 and the Pro Max is on sale for $1,199.

Both models are available for pre-order now and ship on September 20.

Apple said the price for its Series 10 watch will start at $399 for a GPS-only variant. A more phone-like GPS and cellular model starts at $499. Apple Watch Series 10 will be available in jet black, rose gold and silver aluminum. Above a titanium-finish version of the Series 10 in gold

What’s new in the Apple Watch Series 10?

‘Rugged’ was the adjective of choice as Apple made its pitch to consumers that their new Apple Watch Series 10 would be the ultimate wearable for outdoor adventuring, fitness and health tracking.

Those new design features — including an exterior of polished aerospace-grade titanium — promised a device that manages to be both lighter and more durable.

During the company’s livestream Monday, Apple boasted that the device was their thinnest Apple Watch ever at just 9.7mm thick (0.38 inches) with an extra wide-angle OLED display crafted to extend off its watch-face by curving over its rounded edges.

That screen will make the Series 10 display 40 percent brighter than Series 9 when viewed at an angle, the company said, making it easier to read with a quick glance.  

And Apple expects owners of its Series 10 watch to be moving pretty fast as they take the device scuba diving or track their progress training to run a marathon.

A host of software and hardware upgrades were expressly designed for aquatic activities, including a new Tides app that will deliver a seven-day forecast of tidal information (high and low tides, height, direction and more) for coastlines around the globe.

A new depth gauge on the wearable can tell an Apple Watch user how far down they’ve swam up to 19 feet (6 meters), as well as the water temperature around them via a built-in Depth app they described as ‘highly legible for easy underwater visibility.’

 A host of upgrades for the Apple Watch Series 10 were expressly designed for aquatic activities, including a new Tides app that will deliver a seven-day forecast of tidal information (high and low tides, height, direction and more) for coastlines around the globe

Pending authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration and other global health authorities, Apple hopes to have Apple Watches fitness trackers soon alerting its owner to a common breathing issue with their sleep.  

The new sleep apnea detection feature will tracking breathing disturbances while you sleep and then analyze that data every 30 days to determine whether you may be suffering from this condition.

‘At Apple, we believe that technology can help you live a healthier life,’ Dr Sumbul Desai, M.D., Apple’s VP of Health, said. 

‘We’re excited to enable incredible new health capabilities for serious conditions that affect billions of people around the world while continuing to keep user data private.’

Some viewers of the event were surprised by the limited battery life for the new Apple Watch Series 10, however, which is sure to put a damper on users globe-trotting adventures. 

’18 hours for a smartwatch is f***ing embarrassing,’ as one observer on Reddit’s r/Apple noted.

Apple said the price for its Series 10 watch will start at $399 for a GPS-only variant.

A more phone-like GPS and cellular model starts at $499. 

Apple Watch Series 10 will be available in jet black, rose gold and silver aluminum.

By Hugo Duncan

Updated: 22:53 BST, 9 September 2024

Shares in the hospitality company behind TGI Fridays in the UK plummeted as it teeters on the brink of collapse.

In a spectacularly bleak update to the stock market, Hostmore dropped a series of bombshells that left investors facing total wipeout.

The business, which has 87 restaurants in the UK, said sales so far this year are 12 per cent lower than the same period last year.

Hostmore blamed ‘persistent warmer weather than the comparative period in 2023 and underlying weak consumer spending’.

In a spectacularly bleak update to the stock market, TGI Fridays-owner Hostmore dropped a series of bombshells that left investors facing total wipeout.

The firm also said it has abandoned plans to buy TGI Fridays in the United States, where there are 128 sites, in a deal that would have been worth £177million.

And it warned that the sale of its UK restaurants – part of a plan to become a larger fully franchise-operated business with restaurants on both sides of the Atlantic – will not ‘recover any meaningful value’.

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Hostmore said it will instead be ‘wound up and delisted’ from the stock market in London when the sale is completed this month.

TGI Fridays will continue to operate under new ownership, it added. Hostmore shares, which were changing hands for as much as 156p on their first day of trading in November 2021, crashed 90.8 per cent, or 8.63p, to 0.87p.

Russ Mould, investment director at broker AJ Bell, said it is ‘effectively game over for Hostmore as a listed business’. He described it as ‘an awful start to the week’ for the company. 

By contrast, Mould hailed ‘a strong start’ for the wider London market as the FTSE 100 looked to put six consecutive days of losses behind it with a rise of 1.1 per cent, or 89.37 points, to 8270.84. The FTSE 250 gained 0.8 per cent, or 156.88 points, to 20650.88.

Stock Watch – Synectics

Security firm Synectics has won a further contract worth £2.4million related to the upgrade and expansion of the surveillance system at a major gaming resort in South-East Asia.

The deal is in addition to a £7.6million contract announced in June. 

AIM-listed Synectics said the unnamed customer has been using its software platform Synergy since 2014 and the contracts will upgrade the existing systems. 

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Shares added 4.8 per cent, or 9p, to 195p.

The rally came as investors await crucial economic data – on jobs and wages today and gross domestic product tomorrow – as they hunt for clues on the outlook for interest rates.

The Bank of England cut rates from 5.25 per cent to 5 per cent last month and while it is expected to leave them there when it meets next week, two further cuts are seen as likely by the end of the year.

Of perhaps even greater importance, certainly to global markets, is what the US Federal Reserve decides to do next week.

An interest rate cut is widely expected, but it is unknown whether the Fed will opt to reduce benchmark US borrowing costs by 0.25 percentage points or 0.5.

Back in London, shares in computer services firm Computacenter came under pressure after it reported a slide in revenues and profits. 

The company said sales dropped 11.6 per cent in the first half of the year to £3.1billion while profits tumbled 31.6 per cent to £84million. 

Chief executive Mike Norris flagged ‘an encouraging start to our third quarter’ and added that the company expects ‘stronger momentum in the second half’ of the year. But shares fell 6.9 per cent, or 178p, to 2410p.

Magners cider maker C&C Group said trading in the six months to the end of August – the first half of its financial year – was ‘in line with expectations’ with revenues down 3 per cent. 

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C&C also launched a share buyback worth €15million. Shares in London rose 1.1 per cent, or 1.6p, to 152.6p.

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By Ted Thornhill, Mailonline Travel Editor

Published: 17:32 BST, 9 September 2024 | Updated: 18:24 BST, 9 September 2024

An etiquette expert has told her TikTok followers that helping waiting staff to clear plates is actually bad manners.

Laura Windsor posted a video of plates in a restaurant being stacked by a customer accompanied with a subtitle stating that doing this is ‘inelegant’.

She continued: ‘You might as well take them to the kitchen and stack the dishwasher.

An etiquette expert has told her TikTok followers that helping waiting staff to clear plates is actually bad manners

‘When you are at a restaurant the whole point is to relax and enjoy without feeling you need to help out the waitstaff.’

Laura went so far as to say that ‘it’s not good manners’ and ‘distasteful’ to ‘take over and do someone’s job for them’.

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Some of her followers disagreed, with one commenter stating: ‘I used to work in hospitality. I was always grateful for people who tried to help a little.’

Laura Windsor (above) posted a video of plates in a restaurant being stacked by a customer accompanied with a subtitle stating that doing this is ‘inelegant’

Another disgruntled viewer said ‘my momma raised me right thank god – stacking a couple of plates has never taken away from a meal out’.

And ‘CJ’ claimed that ‘it’s actually inelegant to sit there and watch them struggle instead of doing something that takes two seconds and will help them out’.

User ‘PixelBitBot’, meanwhile, was clearly irked by Laura’s guidance, writing: ‘No one is entitled enough to actively ask people not to do something that helps someone else because they think it’s “inelegant”.’

But Laura didn’t take the criticism lying down, retorting that it had nothing to do with entitlement but was rather to do with ‘the roles one plays’. She finished her reply stating: ‘Do you go around doing other people’s jobs?’

In another video, Laura remarks that it’s rude to blow on your food. ‘Just wait for the food to cool,’ she says. 

She adds in the same clip that you should keep pace with the other diners, ‘so that you all finish at more or less the same time’.

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For more from Laura visit www.tiktok.com/@laurawindsoretiquette.

Doctors have ramped up their warnings over how ultra-processed foods could be contributing to the surge of colon cancer cases in young people. 

And while candy, chips and processed meats have gotten the most attention recently, there is a growing number of people who report eating ‘clean’ but still get the disease. 

Gastroenterologist at the University of Miami Dr Maria Abreu, who was recently awarded a grant to study this phenomenon, believes part of the problem is the amount of emulsifiers in modern foods, including those that are in healthy products, such as low-fat yogurts, light salad dressings and peanut butter.

The common additives that help give dairy-free and low and non-fat foods their combined and creamy texture, but have been linked to gut inflammation and disruption of the gut microbiome – the collection of healthy bacteria in the body’s digestive tract.

Gastroenterologist at the University of Miami Dr Maria Abreu believes a contributing factor to the rise of colon cancer is a change in the body’s microbiome, which could be caused by the amount of emulsifiers in modern foods

Under normal conditions, the gut microbiome protects the digestive tract from pathogens and infections and helps prevent and reduce gut inflammation. 

When the microbiome is thrown off by medications or certain foods with additives – or the digestive tract is damaged by inflammation – it may increase the risk of cancer. 

Dr Abreu told WSVN 7 News: ‘Something in the microbiome has changed, and it’s setting in motion this chronic inflammation in the [gastrointestinal] tract. 

‘These ultra-processed foods create a lot of noise in the microbial system.

‘Things like emulsifiers that are added in, things that are creamy, you know, the nonfat yogurts and all these things, really can change the gut microbiome very profoundly.’ 

Common emulsifiers include soy lecithin, sucralose, xanthan gum, carrageenan, maltodextrin and polysorbate. 

Popular ‘Light and Fit’ yogurts, zero-sugar Greek yogurts and ‘complete’ protein yogurts frequently contain some type of emulsifier to give the products their creamy consistency. 

Vegan and ‘light’ mayonnaises also list emulsifiers on their ingredient labels. 

Cottage cheese, ‘light’ salad dressings, pickles, cereals, dairy and meat substitutes and even gums can all also contain these potentially harmful ingredients. 

The FDA has reviewed and approved these ingredients and has deemed them ‘generally regarded as safe,’ but there are some studies that have shown concerning associations. 

Data from JAMA Surgery showed colon cancer is expected to rise by 90 percent in people ages 20 to 34

One study found exposure to carrageenan was associated with intestinal ulcers and abnormal, potentially cancerous tissue growth.

Another study found animals exposed to carrageenan developed ulcers and intestinal inflammation.

While some studies have linked xanthan gum to health benefits such as weight loss and lower cholesterol, one set of researchers found consumption of xanthan gum led to an altered gut microbiome.

A 2015 study found people who consumed maltodextrin had a reduced number of good bacteria in their gut and an increased number of bad bacteria, which could damage the intestines and raise the risk of inflammatory bowel conditions.

And another study linked maltodextrin to chronic inflammatory conditions and infection and inflammation of the digestive system.

Multiple studies have looked at the link between the gut microbiome and colon cancer.  

A 2021 study concluded: ‘Because the colorectal region is a site where changes in the gut microbiota can influence the organs directly, [colorectal cancer] CRC is considered to be affected by the gut microbiome more than other tumors.

‘Studies of the gut microbiome revealed that [disruption of the microbiome] occurred more frequently in CRC patients than in healthy people.’

A 2022 study stated: ‘The alterations in the gut microbiome play a major role in the progression and development of CRC.’ 

Joe Faratzis, 34, from Los Angeles, is pictured above in his twenties before his stage-four colon cancer was detected (left) and during treatment which began in 2020 (right)

Laurie Koshers, pictured above with two of her children, was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer at 44 years old

Mrs Koshers was a lifelong vegetarian and avid runner, so her cancer diagnosis came as a shock 

Studies have also discovered that the gut microbiome may also help target CRC treatment in some patients.  

The US has the sixth highest rate of early-onset cancers – disease in people under 50 – with 87 cases per 100,000 people younger than 50 years old – and colon cancer is among the fastest rising. 

Researchers from the University of Missouri-Kansas City looked at rates of colorectal cancer in people 10 to 44 years old over the last two decades and found cases had risen in all age groups.

The rate of colorectal cancers grew 500 percent among children ages 10 to 14 and 333 percent among teenagers aged 15 to 19 years.

Rates rose by 71 percent among people 30 to 34 to seven cases per 100,000 people. Among people 35 to 39, rates rose by 58 percent to 12 cases per 100,000 people.

Among these young cancer patients is 44-year-old Laurie Koshers from Virginia. Despite eating healthy and avoiding processed foods, Mrs Koshers was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer in 2018. 

Mrs Koshers is a lifelong vegetarian and avid runner, so her cancer diagnosis came as a shock. And while experts are increasingly blaming ultra-processed foods, doctors say patients like Mrs Koshers highlight that other factors could be behind the surge.