How Do I Know If I Have Colon Cancer? What are the Symptoms?
Colon Cancer is the Leading Cause of Cancer-Related Deaths for American Adults Under 49.
Invisible Colorectal Cancer Symptoms
(A Reminder that March is Colon Cancer Awareness Month, don’t take the information in this article with a grain of salt, protect yourself, your family, and your community.)
The most common symptom of an early colon cancer is no symptom at all -- that is, most early colon (colorectal) cancers are completely silent, asymptomatic. …And this is the very reason for such vigilance and active screening with the goal of early detection.
Indeed, the majority of patients diagnosed with early colorectal cancer can have microscopic blood loss in the stool, which could be detected by various stool/blood tests, or picked up with a screening colonoscopy.
As colorectal cancer progresses and becomes more advanced within the colon, many patients experience a change in their bowel habits, such as a change in their stool caliber, or alternate between diarrhea and constipation; black stools may also be observed along with feeling tired and bloated.
Attacking the Colon Cancer When It’s Pre-Cancer
Again, to emphasize, our goal is to actually prevent the development of colorectal cancers by means of early detection -- early detection of a precancerous stage, which is a colon polyp. The gold standard for detecting colon polyps is a screening colonoscopy, and this procedure can easily and safely remove early colorectal polyps, before they turn into a colon cancer, 5-10 years later.
What are the Causes of Colorectal Cancer?
Colon cancer can be hereditary, with genetic predisposition being responsible for about 10-15% of colorectal cancers.
This suggests that upwards of 85% of colon cancer can, in fact, can be prevented. Indeed, that is the case since most risk factors for colon cancer are very much modifiable.
Colon cancer risk factors include:
Being overweight,
Having diabetes,
Consuming more than 5 alcoholic drinks per week,
Smoking,
Being sedentary,
Consuming more than 1 serving of refined carbs and meats daily,
Being on recurrent antibiotics,
Having a poor gut biodiversity and a low Vitamin D level.
These risk factors increase the likelihood of developing colon cancer anywhere from 15% to 50%, and, not surprisingly, having multiple simultaneous risk factors is more than additive.
Addressing Awareness and Early Detection of Colon Cancer Next.
In 2021 screening colonoscopy guidelines had changed to initiate screening at age 45, as opposed to 50 years old. Also in 2021, the FDA approved an artificial intelligence enhanced colonoscopy (GI Genius) that had shown to quite drastically improve early colon polyp detection.
Rapid advances have been made over the last five years looking to augment and help with colon cancer detection both in the stool and blood -- such as Cologuard and Guardant molecular testing. We have further learned that over 90% of patients with very early colon cancer have an abnormal cancer genetic signature in their bloodstream, and we can laser in on these genetics to markedly improve our early detection process.
My hope, however, is for wiser lifestyle and nutritional choices. These would include daily walking, eating more plant-based, unprocessed foods with plenty of root vegetables, fermented foods, tree-nuts and fish. With better choices we really can significantly improve our gut biodiversity and colon health.
As a result, the rates of colorectal cancer would be expected to decrease by nearly a half, as opposed to doubling within the next 25 years.
