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Overall, the colorectal cancer story is encouraging

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Re: Overall, the colorectal cancer story is encouraging

#121
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be the damage of repetitive motion, it may be chemicals released into the bloodstream from endurance athletics. It may be something else. Without knowing the root cause, it's impossible to figure out the "sweet spot"

i saw something recently that pointed to the fact that ultra runners end up with less blood in their guts while running for SO long its leading to cancers and such.

This makes the most sense to me. I wonder how long distance cycling compares given that they can go for even longer than runners.

Re: Overall, the colorectal cancer story is encouraging

#122
Australia has a national screening program, originally for over-50s but now also open to 45-49yo to request a home test kit. You'll get a kit every two years, and should they find blood in the sample they will then refer you to get a colonoscopy exam.

They should probably extend the eligibility to these younger high-risk groups.

https://www.health.gov.au/our-work/national-bowel-cancer-scr...

Re: Overall, the colorectal cancer story is encouraging

#123

I wonder why fiber is never brough up with this. Only ~5% of people get enough fiber and it lowers your risk a lot

Fiber is so inconvenient to get in adequate quantity. We cook all our meals using tons of vegetables and none of it has much fiber if I remember. Occasionally I’ll try to start eating oatmeal but get burned out after a week or two.

Re: Overall, the colorectal cancer story is encouraging

#124

My Dr just ordered a test for colon cancer. If it's positive, I'm dead. I don't have enough savings to score a hospital bed, nevertheless surgery. In this, I'm in the same boat as millions of other Americans. Positive medical news rarely applies to us.

Nonsense. There are many ways to get free or reduced price medical care in the US, especially if you are poor. Your doctor will have resources to help you if needed. You can also rack up huge medical debt and then not pay it. The hospital will sell your debt to bill collectors who will call you for a while, and eventually sue you. At that point you can offer to settle for pennies on the dollar, or you might lose the…

Also if you have a low paying job its probably not a big loss to quit it and go on Medicaid if you have a six or seven figure illness. Though it seems like they are trying to change this path for 2027.

Re: Overall, the colorectal cancer story is encouraging

#125

It doesn't look like meat consumption was mentioned anywhere. Frequent consumption of red and processed meat is strongly linked to a higher risk of colorectal cancer, with studies showing a 30% to 40% increased risk for high consumption levels [1]. Processed meat, in particular, raises CRC risk by about 18% for every 50-gram daily portion [2]. Your ultra-endurance athletes might be convinced they need more protein in…

I just hate associative claims that delicately prance around the word “causality”.

I’m sure that we could run a casual analysis on this, though my cursory search yielded nothing, probably because the claim that a certain level of red meat consumption causes certain cancers in humans is not really falsifiable (though we have a plausible biological mechanism to explain it).

I know some biostatisticians but only one or two would have the training to conduct such an analysis, and I wouldn’t trust a statistician in theoretical causality to handle it.

Re: Overall, the colorectal cancer story is encouraging

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m in my early 30s and am starting to think about getting a screening. This is a pretty stupid thing to do unless you've had some sort of symptom or family history. Your protection from illness due to screening is statistical, and jumping out of the calculated recommendation just makes it more likely to hurt you (false positives, false negatives, injuries from the procedure) than to benefit you. Desperately trying…

From a 'public health' perspective, it makes perfect sense to limit the frequency of screening procedures by age and other broad risk-factors, but that doesn't help at the individual level if you fall on the unlucky side of those statistics. Most cancers are still very much lethal once they progress to a certain point, and the best treatment we know of is early detection. Many of the cancer screens are harmless or do…

> that doesn't help at the individual level if you fall on the unlucky side of those statistics

As GP stated, there's the other unlucky side of the statistics with false positives.

Re: Overall, the colorectal cancer story is encouraging

#127

I wonder why fiber is never brough up with this. Only ~5% of people get enough fiber and it lowers your risk a lot

Fiber is so inconvenient to get in adequate quantity. We cook all our meals using tons of vegetables and none of it has much fiber if I remember. Occasionally I’ll try to start eating oatmeal but get burned out after a week or two.

I eat a lot of fibrous frankenfoods and I’m not sure if the net effect is positive, but I think it helps my bowel movements…

Re: Overall, the colorectal cancer story is encouraging

#128

I wonder why fiber is never brough up with this. Only ~5% of people get enough fiber and it lowers your risk a lot

Fiber is so inconvenient to get in adequate quantity. We cook all our meals using tons of vegetables and none of it has much fiber if I remember. Occasionally I’ll try to start eating oatmeal but get burned out after a week or two.

My breakfast: 80g oats, 2tbsp chia seeds, 1tbsp ground flax, a shitload of frozen berries, 50g of mixed nuts (walnuts, almonds, whatever), raisins or other dried fruit

Delicious and has more than the recommended fiber in one meal. I didn't like oats much until I learnt how to make them taste good

Re: Overall, the colorectal cancer story is encouraging

#129

My Dr just ordered a test for colon cancer. If it's positive, I'm dead. I don't have enough savings to score a hospital bed, nevertheless surgery. In this, I'm in the same boat as millions of other Americans. Positive medical news rarely applies to us.

Nonsense. There are many ways to get free or reduced price medical care in the US, especially if you are poor. Your doctor will have resources to help you if needed. You can also rack up huge medical debt and then not pay it. The hospital will sell your debt to bill collectors who will call you for a while, and eventually sue you. At that point you can offer to settle for pennies on the dollar, or you might lose the…

Well, unfortunately the current administration has blocked a bill that would have prohibited medical debt from reflecting on your credit score.

Re: Overall, the colorectal cancer story is encouraging

#130
post #106
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they could do pretty well just not adding bubble gum or whatever nasty flavors the prep has. Sure it'll still be unpleasant and salty, but burping up that nonsense all day really doesn't make it better.

Depending on the doctor some are now recommending getting a tub of miralax, mixing it all into gatorade, and using that for prep instead of the prescription stuff. Still sucks, but at least it isn't a disgusting flavor, although I haven't had a desire for blue gatorade in the last 3 years

I do this, I have gone through 10 Costco tubs so far in my 1+ year of suffering from chronic constipation
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