The marathon runners I know also seem to eat tons of junk food, they can get away with it from a weight perspective because a long run will burn it off, but it could have other consequences.
Point being: there's a lot about long distance runners that's quite different from other people.
Yes, and it seems like it's really a 7.5x risk increase. Still pretty spectacular, though!
I really wonder what could cause that. Randomly throwing out possible causes: 1) blood redirected away from gut, 2) overuse of NSAIDS, 3) ultraprocessed foods (gels etc), 4) strange microbiome issues (gels + stress in gut from extreme exertion = altered gut flora?)
The study that found the result is DOI: 10.1200/JCO.2025.43.16_suppl.3619
We're not really optimized for this sort of extreme endurance and long-term development of serious pathologies is unsuprising.
This pattern is quite old. Already ancient Egyptians suffered from civilizational diseases much more than hunter-gatherers, especially the richer ones (heart attacks, gout, cancer).
Colorectal cancer is not the same thing as high blood pressure, or type 2 diabetes, or any other cancer that isn't colorectal cancer. Diseases are not a monolith and you cannot assume low risk of some diseases means low risk of others. That is wild guesswork passed off as logic, like measuring the shadow your testicles cast on the wall and announcing it is 24.1 degrees Celsius. Ultra-marathon runners also have low risk of type 2 diabetes!
Do you have specific evidence that modern hunter-gatherers have low rates of colorectal cancer that cannot be explained by survivorship bias, screening, genetic differences, and all other confounders, and that they are representative of historical hunter-gatherers? No? Then you cannot confidently conclude that hunter-gatherers didn't experience elevated rates of CRC.
Diseases are not a monolith, but they do tend to arise and fall in some specific clusters, and that is not "logic", good or bad (too many computer-minded people drag logic into the chaos that is biology), but rather a long-time empirical observation, albeit with some exceptions.
The theory behind the ultra marathoners is that extreme distance running disrupts the epithelial layer and microbiome in the gut. Wouldn't drinking have similar effects?
That's news to millenials and the graveyard of craft breweries. I thought alcohol consumption is trending off for younger generations.
though I'm not sure they drank any more than the 2-3 generations that proceeded them.
https://www.google.com/search?q=are+millenials+heavy+drinker...
> For example, baby boomers are the generation with the most dramatic increase in harmful alcohol abuse. In contrast, Gen Z prefers the sober lifestyle as they are known to consume alcohol much less than any of their older counterparts, including millennials.
In this, I'm in the same boat as millions of other Americans. Positive medical news rarely applies to us.
The web is best for me when experimental UX like this is tried out.
E.g. a 45-year-old with a latent colorectal cancer who would previously not have been diagnosed early, but only late when they developed symtpoms, by which time they hit 50, would have counted as an incidence or a likely fatality, among the 50+ data. But if that same individual had been caught at 45, they would have counted as an incidence against int he under-50 cohort.
Earlier, better and more available screening alone will shift the data this way.
The rate of increase in childhood obesity went up during covid.
That being said, I wish this was a normal page that scrolled. The click click click just breaks the web.
Though having to push out a huge fart at the request of the nurse while they stare at you when you wake up is a close 2nd.
Humanity seems to be getting this particular snake in its grip.
Also, hope that bidets may help with it in some way? Bidets supposedly reduce hemorrhoids.
I think a major factor is the increase in microplastics in our diets.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S18777...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/colorectal-cancer-keeps-risin...
> But that progress belongs almost entirely to people 50 and over. For people under 50, both incidence and mortality have been climbing. CRC is now the #1 cancer killer in men under 50.
You need to go to the 2nd screen "Split by age group"
There is a noninvasive testing method called Shield but it is way too flawed to be reliable (with poor positive rates for malignant tumors)
Not completely. Every once in a while they accidentally puncture the intestine with the probes and that becomes a significant medial problem. It doesn't happen often, but that is still a risk that doctors need to consider. If you are over 50 getting one every 10 years is a good idea, and there is some consideration if younger might be worth it. However so few people get colon cancer under 40 that it isn't worth the risks for most - but if there are other signs of a problem (either family history or symptoms) that changes things and it may be worth it.
The trigger for me was blood in my stool. It was the slightest amount but I pursued it because that didn’t seem right. Turns out I had hemorrhoids which brought up something I feel hits others - I was embarrassed.
Fortunately the doctor that performed a banding procedure pushed me to get a colonoscopy purely out of being through and seeing the number of incidences increase at my age range.
I often wonder how much the embarrassment factor comes into play here.
Doctors' ability to prescribe or refer is never restricted by an insurance company. If they think a patient should get whatever healthcare, they are free to say it.
So they may not be willing (even though they are able) perform procedure/test if they aren't confident they'll get paid.
This is a pretty stupid thing to do unless you've had some sort of symptom or family history. Your protection from illness due to screening is statistical, and jumping out of the calculated recommendation just makes it more likely to hurt you (false positives, false negatives, injuries from the procedure) than to benefit you.
Desperately trying to fabricate a reason is just intentionally trying to hurt yourself.
I'm not against colonoscopies (is anyone?) and I personally had my first one early because of an odd pain. Turned out to be unrelated.
- They had symptoms and wanted a screening, but their PCP repeatedly denied them a referral for like a year because they were "too young".
- They lied about family history after symptoms got worse and got their referral.
- They got the colonoscopy which came back clean, and then symptoms continued to get worse.
- Finally their doctor gave them a referral for an MRI.
Results were stage 4 CRC. The doctor performing the colonoscopy missed the tumor, which was tucked into the sigmoid (the bend in your colon), where he didn't properly inflate because he wasn't taking it very seriously. It had a thumb-tip sized protrusion inside the colon but had gotten huge on the opposite side of the colon wall. They fought it for 8 years after the diagnosis and over 100 rounds of chemo (!!!), were about to get a new procedure at Yale, in which the doctor told them to think of it in terms of "this really may be a complete cure", but it was canceled because of the Big Beautiful Bill.
If you have symptoms (even if you don't), don't let some fuckass Nurse Practitioner tell you no. They don't know shit and they let their egos get in the way when they have to deal with moderately informed patients advocating for themselves. This was preventable and tge medicap system failed them because both the PCP and the doctor performing the colonoscopy were not paying attention to what they were being presented with and saw only their own expectations.
Also...apparently doctors wanted to lower the screening age to like 35, but insurance companies fought it, so it's at 45.
On this website, it is frequently opined that because health insurers have a legal minimum medical loss ratio, that health insurers prefer inflated costs so that their medical losses are higher, which means their premiums can be higher, which means their revenue is higher, which means their profit is higher.
I would have thought health insurers would support a lower screening age, especially since it would inflate costs for all insurers so everyone's cut of the now bigger pie gets bigger.