Worrying increase in bowel cancer in the young, fit & healthy

[notyetretired]

Just curious to know why this is?

There have been lots of reports lately reporting that the incidence of bowel cancer has increased to a worrying degree in the young, attributing it to a number of possible causes (e.g. microbiome/gut bacteria, processed food & meat consumption, obesity, screening younger etc).

However, many clinical experts have been baffled as to why they are increasingly seeing those who are genuinely young, fit and healthy (consuming no or very little meat/processed food and alcohol and who are into regular exercise). Several high profile cases fit this - Bowel Babe to name just one.

I'm curious to know why this is so? Of course, various studies are still ongoing any researchers on here with theories or observations as to what might be behind this rise? Also interested in more anecdotal evidence as to life style issues that might be contributing and which fit the timelines of the increases.

I think getting treatment as a woman is difficult when you’re in the childbearing years. I had bleeding for a year before it was taken seriously. I was lucky it was ulcerative colitis but if it had been bowel cancer I think I would have been a goner.

Admin - I wonder if this could be moved to general health, perhaps, if this is a threat which is more for support with those with cancer or expected cancer.

I don't think people eat as many vegetables as they used to. Even vegetarians and vegans seem to eat more flour and grains than vegetables. Also things such as ice cream and fizzy drinks used to be occasional now some children have them frequently and will grow up think this is normal.

My mum has chrons. Just diagnosed in her 60s. We have a family history of bowel issues. She has been gluten free for the last few years but I would say her diet is really bad. She thinks buying gluten free is healthy but it's so over processed. Biscuits, cakes, chocolate, even local chip shop. This makes her think she's helping her bowels when really she's just upped her UPF. She was much healthier many years ago with her diet. It's such a fallacy that these 'helpful' foods are good for people.

It's a bit of a myth that fit and healthy people don't get cancer. Cancer doesn't discriminate. My friend, one of the fittest people you could meet (an athlete) died young from cancer. I think with bowel cancer, it's just being spotted earlier because people with IBD, IBS etc have more regular screenings. (And those issues themselves are being diagnosed and treated earlier these days than, say, 20/30 years ago).
One of my relatives died from bowel cancer in her early 40s and that was back in 1970.

My gastroenterologist told me she is seeing a rise in younger people with bowel cancer, she finds it a worrying trend.

Of course fit and healthy people get cancer too but the fact there is a plethora of high fat, high carb and sugary foods available 24/7 absolutely must have something to do with it.

When I was a child (in the 70’s) supermarkets were a fraction of the size they are now and larger sizes doesn’t always better choices, only a quarter of these extra large supermarkets have health, clean foods. The other 3/4 are full of absolute junk which shouldn’t even be classed as foods.

I live in the same area I grew up in and as with most towns, where there was once a small Whimpy and McDonalds with maybe a fish and chip shop there is now a new fast food drive through or restaurant’ popping up all the time and we all know the shit they serve up disguised as food.

I very much worry about my teen dc’s. I brought them up on clean, healthy foods but now they are independent they eat crap, so do all their friends.

Microplastics and our fruit and veg not being as nutritious would be my guess. G.P advised me to give DD vitamins despite her eating loads of veg, (sometimes raw too) as our produce doesn’t have the vitamins it used to have. Better off growing your own.
DH has had a few close friends die of cancer (various) they’ve been in their fifties.

💐.

I think the rise in ultra processed foods probably contributes. Some people who are fit and think they eat a healthy diet are consuming large amounts of upf. Protein shakes, most food advertised as low fat and low sugar are upf. The food industry is excellent at selling ultra processed foods with health claims. I used to think my family ate a healthy diet but was shocked and disgusted when I read ultra processed people. Now we avoid ultra processed food as much as possible. We also try to comsume 30 different plant based foods a week as recommended by Tim Spector to increase the health of our gut microbiome. Interestingly my DH IBS is significantly improved.

There's definitely a link with more fibre being protective for bowel cancer

Well there's lots of research on emulsifiers, maltodextrins, carrageenan and gums showing they are awful for the microbiome and implicated in Crohn's and UC (which I obviously know quite a lot about). There's also evidence linking aspartame to cancer.

The irony is we were sold low fat foods like vff yoghurts, ice creams, biscuits full of sweeteners, gluten/dairy free alternatives (not naturally GF/DF foods) and vegan UPFs as "healthier choices" and it now turns out they were anything but....

I notice that often the cases mentioned of the fit and healthy, are training for marathons, ex athletes or otherwise pushing their bodies very hard with exercise (IRL, in the press and on this thread). I remember being told by a doctor many years ago that there’s a link between driving the metabolism in this way and accelerating cancers or flipping an epigenetic switch if there’s a predisposition (I unfortunately can’t remember which or both). I wonder if there’s any accessible research on it.

Wow, that's great. There was a thread here years where we aimed to eat as many different types of veg each day as we could. Would you share some of these 30 plant based meals? Sounds fantastic.

Being low risk for cancer doesn't mean no risk. Some low risk people will get cancer, equally some high risk people won't. And asking for anecdotal information and attempting to extrapolate out is dangerous, bad science.

In some ways we are far healthier than previous generations. In other ways, we are really not. The advice for a longtime now has been to eat a healthy diet. Which invariably means lots of fruit and veg, some carbs and a bit of protein. Minimising processed foods. Which I try to do, but like many people also go for the easy option at times.

@Ginnandtonic I read that book too and listened to the podcasts. I'm on the UPF Facebook group too. I was amazed how much food we had in the house that was UPF particularly as I thought we ate healthy.

I'm in NZ and the same thing is being talked about here. As yet no-one seems to have an answer, but yes it is happening worldwide, and all the cases I've read about recently were women.

I have read of several cases of young women being diagnosed with bowel cancer in recent weeks. All of them had nothing more than stomach ache and by the time they sought medical help they were all within weeks of the end of their life, and that is what is worrying. So no, I don't agree that it is being spotted earlier in many cases.

Seems too easy to blame it on the most recent boogeymen to me, UPFs. I mean, I know there is considerable evidence that a wide variety of veg and to a lesser extent, fruit, and a wide and varied diet is healthier…. I’m just less sure about the strength of the UPF evidence. Could be the case, might not be.

Bowel cancer incidence could be affected by so many things. If the oncologists haven’t settled on a singular cause then we probably can’t be sure there is a singular cause or even a prime suspect yet.

Personally I think it’s our gut microbiome not being as healthy as it used to be. Healthy Gut bacteria is vital for our immune system of which 80% is located in the bowel itself. Eating a few yoghurts won’t cut it. We need proper fermented foods and a wide range of exposure to different bacterias.

I think it's likely to be a combination of environmental exposure, lifestyle and genetics.

I was talking to an expert recently about a particular type of rare lizard she was breeding as part of an international endangered species program. She said they had learned a lot about care of the young lizards and they had found that giving them food that was too rich when they were young led to a shortened lifespan, even if the animal appeared healthy and not overweight.

I wondered then if there is something in this. If you look at pictures of children from the 1970s and before they look skinny and undernourished by modern standards. Even modern children who aren't overweight are visibly more robust looking than children used to be and they hit puberty younger than they used to. Possibly this acceleration isn't good for us long term.

I’m not sure why it is a surprise that it also affects those who are ‘slim’ and ‘fit’. You can have an incredibly unhealthy diet and lifestyle and still be both of those things. You could smoke 10 B &H a day and still be slim! Morally of course they are superior but not necessarily physically.

Being the optimist here... is it partly that people aren't dying of something else? Road traffic accidents, other illnesses, in childbirth etc. So statistically, some of the people who are sadly diagnosed with bowel cancer would have died of something else in the past before they were diagnosed?

I wasn't saying UPF free diet is the solution but surely it wouldn't hurt and would be easier on the gut micro biome not to have all these additives going through your system. I agree our gut is absolutely important and a healthy gut helps the entire body. Also keeping our lymph system healthy as possible. So again eating food on the more natural side with less pesticides and added extras. Getting reasonable exercise such as half hour a day brisk walk will help pump your lymph system. It's still a lottery sadly but surely something is going wrong in our modern life of cancer is on the increase especially in younger ones. I wish the experts would agree on what we should be doing but it all depends on what's funding their research I guess.

In this case probably not.

In people over the age of 50 bowel cancer rates are decreasing, likely due to widespread screening and subsequent treatment of precancerous polyps.

But since the mid 1990's bowel cancer rates in the under 50's has doubled(!)

Now this doesn't mean that the overall risk is huge for younger people; it's not. But that's a significant increase and certainly has the medical community on alert. Something is definitely going on.