How To Assess The Risk Factors For Colorectal Cancer
What are the risk factors for colorectal cancer?
There are many different risk factors for colorectal cancer. Advancing age is probably the largest. Greater than ninety percent of all colorectal cancers happen in people over the age of fifty. Having a family history of colorectal cancer also will increase your risk. If you've ever developed a polyp, that can increase your risk for colorecal cancer because colorectal cancer usually starts as polyps then they advance into cancer. Having a genetic predisposition, for instance FAP or another inherited cancer syndrome can increase your risk of developing colorectal cancer as well. Any kind of chronic inflammation in the bowel can increase your risk as well. So if you have inflammatory bowel disease, ulcerative colitis, or Crohns disease that can increase your risk of colorectal cancer too. Some other risk factors for colorectal cancer include toxins that we take in. People who smoke can increase the risk of colorectal cancer by about thirty to forty percent compared to those who do not smoke. Alcohol, especially heavy alcohol consumption can increase one's risk too. Other factors which can increase one's risk for colorectal cancer include being overweight, not exercising. Those have been associated in epidemiologic studies with increases in colorectal cancer. And then also extra exposures, for instance if somebody's gets radiation for prostate cancer there has been a slight increase risk of developing colorectal cancer in those individuals. One's ethnic background can increase one's risk for developing colorectal cancer. For instance, Ashkenazi Jews carry a greater incidence of genetic mutations which predispose them for developing colorectal cancer over their lifetime. In addition, African Americans have a greater risk of developing colorectal cancer. It's not clear if that's a genetic predisposition or if that's something that's environmental because diet also plays a role too. And diets that are higher in fats and lower in fiber and lower in certain vitamins have been associated with greater risks of colorectal cancer.
