Another healthy person with a colon cancer diagnosis

JanJan63 · February 2016

I just found out that a friend of a friend has just been diagnosed with colon cancer with mets in her liver. I'm told she's very fitness conscious and eats very healthy. Really makes you wonder what exactly a person could do to prevent it, if anything. I recently read that the latest study says that eating habits is the cause 50% of the time. So the other 50% isn't from that. So how is that helpful?

Jan

lp1964 · February 2016

You can only say...

...that certain things increase or decrease the chance of getting cancer in a large population count. Not everybody who smokes get lung cancer, but the chances increase. Not everybody who eats healthy and exercises will avoid cancer, but chances are lower. Nothing is full proof, bit we have to do our best to increase our chances of avoiding getting sick or once we are getting better.

Laz

beaumontdave · February 2016

It's frustrating that so

It's frustrating that so little is clear and defined, beyond things like smoking, obesity, and being sedentary, when it comes to what sets cancer off, and makes it reoccur. Maybe sugar, maybe alcohol, maybe any food additive out there, maybe outgassing from new products in your home, like carpet, fabrics, and flooring. Maybe maybe maybe. So some of us turn our bodies into the temple of deprivation and purified intake, and some say the hell with it, it's either going to get me or not, regardless of what I do. Most probably find middle ground and improve their diet, work at more exercise and activity, and then just hope for a break, some luck. Even if the cancer comes back or not, it doesn't prove anything we did or didn't do, with the noted exceptions, changed anything. Living in fear is all it's cracked up to be, living in constant discomfort even worse so it's reckless to just say the hell with it, while eliminating those things that make life worthwhile to those that indulge in them, could leave you with an existence that seems barren, and without joy. At least colon cancer has some reason for occurring, at least some of the time. My wife's brain cancer had no known cause. It's not familial, it doesn't have a known cause in environment or diet, it's just the losing ticket in one of life's lotteries. It's all maddening to ponder, but like I've said "mad" works for me, it makes me go do things I can have control other, and lots of things always need fixing, so off I go....................................Dave

Sue_2015 · February 2016

Sorry about your friend of a

Sorry about your friend of a friend. I hear ya. I was healthy and fit (I thought) when I was diagnosed with colon cancer and a liver tumor last February.

Then in the news in the past couple months was a big deal about how science has determined that eating processed foods can cause colon cancer. OH, OK, now I get it. When I was young I was practically raised on hotdogs, bacon with breakfasat, SPAM, and assorted other processed foods. It's helpful to future generations to not do as we did back in those days. I hope we see a huge decline in colon cancer because people have stopped eating processed foods.

It's like someone said about life's lottery draw. Some of us get cancer and some don't and there's no reason for it in many cases.

All the best,

Sue

DaveHereInFlorida · February 2016

Little boys and girls get

Little boys and girls get cancer all the time as do pets so i dont think diet is the factor...rather hereditary traits and the fact we all live in a fallen world . However, its prudent to eat low fat foods especially low saturated fats. Excersise is vitally important as well.

JanJan63 · February 2016

For the record, I almost

For the record, I almost never ate processed foods as a child. My parents were older and my mom did not believe in it. She made good home made meals all the time. I remember being jealous of other kids that got things like pasta in a can or hot dogs. Every once in a while I'd get a hot dog but it was a treat. As an adult I had IBS so extreme I couldn't eat processed foods or fast food without being sick so I pretty much never ate any of it. I couldn't eat anything too rich or high in fat or things like ice cream or I'd pay for it so I didn't bother.

I think, in my ever so humble opinion, when people say it's from eating a certain way or not eating enough of something they're trying to have some control over something that we have no control over. People have done this for thousands of years. Make a sacrifice to get a good harvest, perform a ceremony to become fertile, whistle going past a graveyard so the ghosts don't get you. People, particularly those who haven't had the misfortune to have been diagnosed with cancer want to think that when someone has been they must have done something to cause it. Then they can reassure themselves that they will never get it. How many of us non-smokers when we hear about someone who smokes getting a lung cancer diagnosis feel sympathy but also a small bit of relief by telling ourselves that we won't ever get that diagnosis?

Certainly there are things we can and should do to lessen the odds including eating well but, sadly, we can't say if you do this you will not get cancer. And there are plenty of people who eat terribly and do things to their bodies that nobody ought to but will never get cancer. And, like I've mentioned on this forum a number of times, why did our friend's horse get colon cancer when he's a total vegetarian? They'd had him and a number of other horses for years so it's not environmental. And he was fit, too. But he ended up with a huge tumour and had to be put down.

Jan

lizard44 · February 2016

DaveHereInFlorida said:
Little boys and girls get
Little boys and girls get cancer all the time as do pets so i dont think diet is the factor...rather hereditary traits and the fact we all live in a fallen world . However, its prudent to eat low fat foods especially low saturated fats. Excersise is vitally important as well.

Childhood colon cancer

is extremely rare. From what I inderstand, it accounts for less than 1% of all childhood cancers, and most of the cases i've heard or read about were of children close to their teens, so that doesn't completley rule out diet as a factor. And as for pets, my vet is a stickler for reading dog food labels in an attempt to avoid a lot of the artificial colors, additives, etc. that he says are added, not for the benefit of the dog but to make the food attractive to the pet's owner. He feels all the additives do contribute to a number of health problems in pets. Knowledge about what effects everyday things have on our health is constantly evolving. I can remember when I was a child in the late 1940s how many of the shoe stores had x-ray machines that let you see your feet inside your shoes to check the fit. It was so much fun, and nobody knew then just how dangerous overexposure to radiation could be. I'm surprised I got colon cancer instead of bone cancer in my feet!

Grace/lizard44

heisenberg · February 2016

I tried to lead a pretty healthy lifestyle

For the past ten, fifteen years, I have eaten literally TONS of salads. I ate a HUGE salad full of romaine, cucumbers, carrots, etc. etc. almost every day. I ate red meat, but only on occasion, and for a while I was heading toward vegetarianism. I drank alcohol, but only a drink here and there, maybe a couple times a week. I was not overweight. I exercised regularly, running on a treadmill.

I still got colon cancer.

The only risk factors I had when I got it was that (1) I'm over 50 years old, and (2) there is a history of it in my family. My aunt had it, and a close cousin (his father and my father were brothers; his mother and my mother were sisters) got it in his late 20's.

Another healthy person with a colon cancer diagnosis

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