THE NEW YORK TIMES – Colorectal cancer rates are rapidly rising among adults in their 20s, 30s and 40s, and the most common warning sign for the disease is passing blood in the stool, according to a new scientific review.
Rectal bleeding is associated with a fivefold increased risk of colorectal cancer, according to the new analysis, which looked at 81 studies that included nearly 25 million adults under 50 from around the world.
Abdominal pain, changes in bowel habits and anemia are other common warning signs of the disease and should not be ignored, said the researchers, who published the paper on Thursday in the journal JAMA Network Open.
Colon and rectal cancer rates have risen among younger adults as rates have declined among older people, who are far more likely to get colonoscopies that can catch cancers and precancerous lesions called polyps.
But though millennials born around 1990 are at almost twice the risk of colon cancer compared with people born in the 1950s, and have a risk of rectal cancer that is four times as high, young people without a strong family history of colon cancer aren’t eligible for colonoscopies until the age of 45 …
