Abstract： Colon cancer, which is a common malignant disease of digestive system, seriously threatens the health of human being. With the improvement of living standard, people's dietary structure, way of life had significant differences from the past. In China, there was a trend that the incidence and mortality of colon cancer had been increased year by year. The major reasons for that included excessive intake of energy and fat, decreasing intake of dietary fiber, and gradually increasing incidence of obesity. Therefore, it was necessary for the medical researchers to research into the cause of colon cancer and found out a reasonable intervention. Although the cause and the pathogenesis of colon cancer was not clear, more and more studies had found that intestinal microbiota played an important role in the development of colon cancer recently. The balance of intestinal microbiota under normal condition played an important role in the improvement of digestion and absorption of nutrients, also in the maintenance of a normal physiological function of the intestinal tract as well as in the modulation of the immune system. The steady state of intestinal flora will be destroyed when there was a change of internal or external causes. Intestinal flora imbalance could cause many kinds of disease, including colon cancer. Previous studies indicated that incidence of colon cancer decreased by adjusting the intestinal flora imbalance. In addition, a variety of probiotics had the effect of inhibiting tumor, we could adjust the intestinal flora through change the dietary structure and inhibit the colon disease. This paper reviewed the latest research on the pathogenesis of intestinal microbiota in the development of colon cancer, and the preventive effect of probiotics on colon cancer.
