Colorectal Cancer is on the rise; what to do about it

An alarming trend is showing its ugly face:  The incidence of colorectal cancer (CRC) amongst the young is on the rise, specially women.   This trend has been spotted for the last two years and the reasons behind this increase are not clear, specially confounding is the fact that more women than men are being diagnosed with this condition, which is confounding the matter even more!

In a recent meta-analysis, where they look at lots of data and look for a trend or a pattern, the researchers found that levels of circulating Vitamin D3 (1,25)Hydroxy Vitamin D, the active form of the Vitamin, that corresponds to levels indicated by Institute of Medicine (IOM) to be effective for bone health, 30 ng/mL or higher, resulted in a significantly lower incidences of CRC than those with levels of less than 30 ng/mL.

People that are really low on Vitamin D3 such as 30 ng/mL or less had a 31% greater chance of developing CRC than those with just 60 ng/mL in their blood!  Achieving this level of Vitamin D3 in circulating blood is not difficult and can be done without supplements as the skin is very efficient at making Vitamin D.    That’s a huge impact!

The study was published in Journal of National Cancer Institute.

Participants with the highest circulating Vitamin D3 (100 ng/mL) had a significant lower relative risk for CRC than those with the lowest level such as 30 ng/mL or less!.

Why exactly is colorectal cancer on the rise anyway?   CRC has been known as a disease of the older population, so why has there suddenly been such an explosion in number of cases of CRC in people under 55 years old, specially in women?   Someone born in 1990 now has double the chance for developing CRC than someone born around 1950!

The exact reason for this is unknown but there are some suspects to consider.  One might be obesity.  Its known that fat cells store alkaloids, environmental toxins and fat soluble drugs.  As incidence of obesity increases, so is incidences of CRC.   This only suggests correlation, but it points to a possible contributor.

Another reason might be all the fast food we are consuming.  Food with added chemicals that the body hasn’t ever seen before and doesn’t know how to fully remove from the body.  Artificial colors, artificial flavors, trans fats, and ridiculous amounts of sugar in our society is surely contributing to this phenomenon.

The stress that is part of daily living these days, and our sedentary life styles surely aren’t helping either and in fact contributing greatly to this trend.

A cell needs to go thru three main changes in order to become cancerous.  Initiation, progression, and metastasis.  Lets talk about the all important first step, the first mishap that is brought on to a cell that sends it down the wrong biological path:  Initiation.  Initiation, just as it sounds,  means what is the stimulus that is bringing on the necessary first changes in the DNA that may get a cell closer to dis-regulation.  Usually its either a noxious stimuli, a powerful oxidant,radiation that causes DNA damage, a chronic low grade infection, chronic low grade inflammation, or repeated inflammation due to infection or injury or exposure!  Inflammation is the root of all evil.   Inflammation that goes unchecked, depending on the cause, will almost in all cases lead to cancer.  So the problem becomes how do you lower the inflammation in the large intestine and beyond?  Here is the best science has got for us on this:

Don’t eat processed foods

Artificial colors and artificial flavors intake should be minimized

eat an anti-inflammatory diet such as the mediterranean diet

get some regular exercise

make sure you’re getting enough sun, or take a supplement for Vitamin D, its a life saver.

acupuncture and herbal medicine is well suited to treat inflammation anywhere in the body: lungs, liver, skin, intestines.