Doctors discover tragic new detail about young people with colon cancer
As if receiving a devastating diagnosis in the prime of their lives wasn’t bad enough.
Doctors have discovered a tragic new detail about young patients with colon cancer: they are at a much greater risk of suicide.
Men aged 35 to 49 with the cancer – defined as ‘early onset’ – were 60 percent more likely to end their lives than their cancer-free peers.
There was a similar increased risk in men over 60 years of age. Women, meanwhile, suffered 12 percent more suicides than their healthy peers, with those in their 20s at the greatest increased risk of suicide.
The shock of a diagnosis at such a crucial point in young people’s lives could cause irreparable grief, the researchers wrote.
The experts believe that colorectal cancer patients in particular may also be driven to suicide due to body image issues, as some patients may end up with a colostomy bag through colorectal surgery.
The findings come amid an epidemic of colon cancer. Dhave diagnoses in the US over the past twenty yearswith healthy people in their twenties and thirties developing the disease more and more often.
Experts are rushing to find the cause, with recent research blaming obesity, processed foods and a sedentary lifestyle.
The above graph shows the increase in colorectal cancer cases in the US in men and women between 2000 and 2021.
Amid a growing stream of theories, researchers in North Carolina and Texas have identified common mental health problems among these patients after studying more than 500,000 patients with colorectal cancer (CRC).
The team wrote in a medical journal in the Journal of Surgical Research: ‘The impact of a CRC diagnosis on suicide risk, especially among young adults in the United States, has not, to our knowledge, been studied.
‘This is particularly important given the increase in the incidence of CRC at a young age and the impact of this diagnosis and treatment at a younger age.’
The study examined 530,711 patients with colorectal cancer aged 20 to 84 years. About 54 percent of participants were male and 69 percent were white.
Of all participants, there were 782 suicides, and almost nine in ten of these were men.
The researchers found an increased risk of suicide in men aged 35 to 49 years and women aged 20 to 24 years.
The team said this could be due to bowel cancer interrupting ‘a critical time in a person’s life’ such as going to university, getting married and starting a family.
The researchers wrote: ‘Certainly the diagnosis and subsequent treatment of colorectal breast cancer during this time may be especially detrimental to their mental health.’
Men over 60 with bowel cancer were also more likely to commit suicide than their peers.
The team said this is consistent with CDC data, which shows that among men, those over 75 have the highest suicide rate.
Unmarried patients were also more likely to commit suicide than married patients, which could be due to a lack of social support.
Patients with more advanced disease were also twice as likely to commit suicide than those diagnosed at an earlier stage, most likely due to a poor prognosis and coping with a greater financial burden.
The team said doctors should pay more attention to the mental health of colon cancer patients and screen for depression in newly diagnosed patients.
Joe Faratzis (pictured left and right) was diagnosed with colon cancer after ignoring his symptoms for eight months. The disease later spread to his liver and lungs, making him regret waiting so long to get tested
Evan White (pictured here) was diagnosed with colon cancer at the age of 24. He died four years later, just weeks before his wedding
In many young patients, symptoms are dismissed due to benign gastrointestinal disease, leading to more aggressive disease.
DailyMail.com has repeatedly documented the global rise of colon cancer among young men.
Joe Faratzis, a 34-year-old from Los Angeles, noticed a “dull, mild ache” in his abdomen in 2019, but assumed scans were not necessary.
Six months later, there was blood on the toilet paper when he went to the bathroom, although he “wasn’t too concerned.”
Just two months after that, he finally agreed to a colonoscopy, which revealed stage four colon cancer. The disease later spread to his lungs and liver.
Although he is currently in remission, Mr Faratzis regrets having to wait so long to get tested.
He said in a recent TikTok video, “Listen to your body. If you think something is wrong, it doesn’t hurt to have it checked out.
‘If I hadn’t waited – if I had gotten the CT scan in 2019 when I had my first symptoms of colorectal cancer – I might not have ended up in the position I am in now.’
And Evan White, of Dallas, had just graduated from the University of Arkansas with a degree in finance when he was diagnosed with colon cancer after ignoring his main symptom — fatigue — for months.
The tumor was not noticed until it had reached stage three, meaning it had spread beyond the colon, making it much more difficult to treat.
He died at the age of 29, just before his wedding.