Colorectal cancer cases are rising among younger people, striking even folks without obvious risk factors.
For nearly two decades, UC San Francisco Family Community Medicine Professor Micheal Potter, MD, has worked to make cancer screening easier.
But getting otherwise healthy adults in for regular tests to detect cancer early is more complicated than it seems. More than 15 years ago, Potter worked with San Francisco community health clinics to develop a model that paired colorectal cancer screening with something about half of us do annually anyway: get a flu shot.
The model has community clinicians offer take-home fecal immunochemical tests (FIT) for colorectal cancer alongside flu shots in a model dubbed FluFIT. Folks who opt for the screeners can collect samples at home before sending them to a lab for tests.
Today, community health centers in all 50 states have used Potter's model, first developed at UCSF to save lives. Potter tells us how colorectal cancer risk is changing and what to know about screening.
How has colorectal cancer risk changed?
The risk of colorectal cancer increases with age, and the vast majority of people who get colorectal cancer are above 50. But over the last few years, we've seen that people who are in their 40s develop about the same risk of colorectal cancer as people in their 50s would have had two decades ago.
Why are people getting colorectal cancer at younger ages?
We don't yet know why people are developing cancers earlier, but this seems to be a global phenomenon and not just restricted to colorectal cancer. A lack of physical activity, increasing rates of obesity or toxic substances in our food supply, such as microplastics, could be why we're seeing more cancer in younger people.
