Another victim of America’s youth cancer epidemic has shared her story.
Raquel, from California, suffered from diarrhea and painful bowel movements on and off for four years.
She could use a number two up to ten times a day and still never feel like she had had a full bowel movement.
But she blames it on not getting enough fiber or not eating healthy enough. Raquel suspected irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or a gluten or dairy intolerance.
It never occurred to her that she might have cancer.
Although cancer rates have steadily declined in recent decades, doctors are dismayed by the explosion of cases of colorectal cancer, also known as colon cancer, in younger adults who are traditionally at low risk for the disease.
Raquel from California noticed that she was always going to the toilet in 2019
In 2023, she was diagnosed with stage four colorectal cancer
The graph above shows the number of colon cancer diagnoses across age groups over time. It shows a clear increase in the number of diagnoses among people aged 20 to 49 (top right) and an arrest in the number among 50 to 54 year olds (bottom left). The number of diagnoses among people over 65 continues to decline. The terms localized, regional, distant, and non-staged refer to the stage of colon cancer that was diagnosed
In 2019, Raquel talked to her roommate about always going to the toilet.
Raquel didn’t have health insurance, so she didn’t go to the doctor.
Instead, she started taking Metamucil, a fiber supplement, which helped calm her random bouts of diarrhea for a while.
In 2021, she moved to Seattle and got a job with decent health insurance, but her symptoms disappeared.
In 2022, she went to the toilet a lot again and had uncomfortable bowel movements.
Her stool was “pencil thin, sometimes orange-red in color, and occasionally there was a little blood,” she told SELF magazine.
Raquel also became completely full after eating, and was bloated no matter what she ate, even after trying to eat a diary and gluten-free diet.
“Looking back, these were major warning signs that something was wrong, and I only found out later that these were classic signs of colorectal cancer,” she said.
In May 2023, she had her first physical exam in ten years and told her doctor about the intestinal problems she had been having for four years.
The doctor said it was probably anxiety, and possibly gas, and recommended a psychiatric appointment.
The above graph shows how the rate of colon cancer has increased among adults aged 20 to 49. Scientists say more than 40 percent of diagnoses occur among people aged 45 to 49. The graph shows the rates of colon cancer per 100,000 people in younger adults, arranged by stages
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Three weeks later, Raquel developed “excruciating” abdominal pain in her abdomen and lower back, causing her to almost pass out in her apartment.
She went to the emergency room where she underwent a CT scan, an abdominal ultrasound and blood tests.
The doctor broke the news that she had cancer of her ovaries and liver, and she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
After meeting with an oncologist and undergoing a liver biopsy, doctors realized the cancer had started in her colon and spread to other organs.
She was diagnosed with stage four colorectal cancer. Doctors ordered an endoscopy and colonoscopy to examine her further.
Her colorectal cancer was so large that doctors had difficulty getting the scope through her colon.
Colon cancer grows very slowly, meaning Raquel could have had cancer for eight to 10 years, perhaps even into her 20s, without knowing it.
With colon cancer, you often only have noticeable or really serious symptoms when the cancer is in stage three or four.
The symptoms, which include nausea, constipation, diarrhea and difficulty going to the toilet, can be due to so many other conditions, including less harmful ones like IBS.
Raquel started biweekly chemotherapy and changed her diet to focus on bland foods like mashed potatoes.
Her doctors have told her that the chemo will stop working at some point in the future because her cancer is terminal.
Her chances of survival two years after diagnosis are 20 percent, which drops to five percent after five years, but she said she is “determined to beat the odds.”
Although cancer diagnosis has generally improved over the years, doctors don’t think to look for cancer in young people, which can lead to misdiagnoses.
But the face of cancer is changing and diagnoses are shifting sooner. Experts expect that colon cancer will become the leading cause of cancer-related deaths under the age of 50 in the next decade.
Experts aren’t sure what’s behind this unprecedented increase and are investigating whether modern diets, antibiotics or even fungal infections could play a role.
A growing number of chemicals in food are also suspected to play a role. Even if chemicals do not directly cause cancer, they do affect the levels of hormones, including estrogen, which has a protective effect against the development of colorectal cancer.
A study last year suggested that high-fat diets could be the cause of America’s colorectal cancer epidemic in young people.
Researchers from the Salk Institute and the University of California, San Diego, found that high-fat diets alter gut bacteria and alter digestive molecules called bile acids in mice.
These caused inflammation, increasing the risk of colorectal cancer, a notoriously difficult type of disease to treat.
Dr. Ronald Evans, study author and director of the Salk Institute’s Gene Expression Laboratory, said: ‘The balance of microbes in the gut is shaped by diet, and we’re discovering how changes in the gut microbial population (the gut microbiome) can cause problems . that lead to cancer.
‘This paves the way for interventions that reduce the risk of cancer.’
Other explanations include the overuse of antibiotics and fungal infections in the intestines.
Dr. Suneel Kamath, an oncologist specializing in colorectal cancer at the Cleveland Clinic, previously told DailyMail.com: ‘What we suspect is happening is that when there is overuse of antibiotics, there is a change in what was a normal, healthy microbiome , and then bad pathogens, if you will, are introduced into that.
‘These can cause inflammation or other things that cause mutations in cells.
‘(These) can lead to an overdrive of the cell dividing and replacing itself – and if you do that faster than you should, that can lead to mutations occurring and, as a result, tumors developing.’