It seems ages ago but in fact it’s just a couple of months since we did a cheery Christmas piece on breast cancer survival trends. As it happened, we beat by a mere few days a sobering counterblast from Claudia Santucci, Carlo La Vecchia and their colleagues in the University of Milan and other centres. They’ve been looking at trends in bowel cancer in the young (age 25-49 years) in the European Union (EU) and the UK.
Buckle up, it’s bad
It’s bad news, of course. From 2018 to 2024 bowel cancer death rates will go up by about one-third in both women and men in the UK. They’ll rise in other countries too (e.g., Italy) but the UK is set to out-perform the rest of Europe.
Bowel cancer rates to rise by one third in under 50s. This is the 2nd most common cause of cancer death in the UK with nearly 17,000 deaths every year. From Gregory 2024.
So what can we do?
Did you spot how ‘we’ slid our way into the 25-49 age group?! Cunning but the fact is everyone is at risk. The worst of it is that you’ll know what’s coming next. The major contributory factors are being overweight and obese, alcohol consumption and reduced physical activity. The overall bowel cancer death rates across Europe and the UK are falling but for the 25-49 group their life-style choices enable them to buck that trend.
Helpfully we’ve reviewed these factors and the role of gut bacteria in earlier blogs (Bugged and Mushrooming Secret Army noted the 2,000 or so different species of bacteria that live with us and, in Mapping the Bug Army, how obesity affects their proportions. Seeing the Future talked about how obesity perturbs the immune system and Fatbergs Block Cancer Defences summarised the first molecular link to be made between obesity and cancer).
Anything we didn’t know?
Of course not. The big problem with bowel and a good few other cancers, is that there are few early symptoms. The advice is keep an eye on your bowel movements — literally — and if there’s anything odd, especially any signs of blood, contact a physician. But absence of visible blood in stools is not a sure-fire indicator that all is well. You can buy on-line faecal immunochemical test kits that are very sensitive — much more so than eyeballing stools — so you can self-check. A good idea especially if you have a family history of bowel cancer.
We referred above to the large amount of evidence linking both alcohol and obesity to bowel cancer. Seemingly, in central and northern Europe and the UK, younger folk are drinking more whereas countries such as France and Italy, where there has been a reduction in alcohol consumption, have not seen such marked rises in death rates from this cancer.
Like so much of life, it’s up to us. It should be self-evident that ‘binge drinking’ isn’t a great idea so next time the opportunity presents itself, keep your wallet in your pocket, get off your butt and go for a decent walk. Better still a jog/run. And see if that plus eating a sensible diet keeps your weight where it should be. It’s not a guarantee but it sure improves your chances of avoiding bowel cancer.
Reference
Santucci, C., Mignozzi, S., Malvezzi, M., Boffetta, P., Collatuzzo, G., Levi, F., La Vecchia, C. and Negri, E. (2024). European cancer mortality predictions for the year 2024 with focus on colorectal cancer. Annals of Oncology, https://www.annalsofoncology.org/article/S0923-7534(23)05110-4/fulltext
Betrayed by Nature: The War on Cancer 