Scientists find clues to surge in bowel cancer among the young

A surge in bowel cancer among young women is worrying doctors – with Aussie research finding a surprising cause.

Exclusive: Bowel cancer rates are soaring among healthy young women, prompting calls for the screening age to be lowered to 45 as in the US.

It comes as new research links the surge in the cancer to Type 2 diabetes in young people and findings that the breast cancer-causing gene BRCA2 is associated with early onset bowel cancer.

Calls to lower the screening age from 50 to 45 are being supported by Sydney mum Jessica Kidd who was devastated to be diagnosed with bowel cancer at the age of 33 — just 10 months after giving birth to her son Max.

“It was hell not knowing whether I was going to be around long enough for my son to remember who I was,” the ABC journalist and Bowel Cancer Australia ambassador said.

Ms Kidd now has to live with six monthly check-ups to ensure her cancer does not return or spread.

People born in 1990 have double the risk of developing bowel cancer of someone born in 1950, and four times the risk of developing rectal cancer as someone born in 1950.

Bowel cancer is now the deadliest cancer for young people aged 25 to 44.

Bowel Cancer Australia said one in 10 new cases of bowel cancer was now occurring in people aged under 50.

Jessica Kidd, pictured with her two-year-old daughter Neve, was diagnosed with bowel cancer at the age of 33. Picture: Ryan Osland

Researcher Joanne Young, of Adelaide’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital, made the unexpected discovery that people with type two diabetes have four times the risk of developing bowel cancer as those without the condition while interviewing 200 young people diagnosed with the disease.

Many of those with the cancer were fit and healthy “people who run, people who are vegans, normal weight and they’re sitting there saying to me across the table, how could this happen to me?” she said.

One theory, yet to be proven, is that surging insulin levels before you get type two diabetes may prompt cells in the bowel to overgrow, she said.

Bowel Cancer Australia spokesman Dr John Nik Ding said most GP’s don’t consider bowel cancer a risk for young people, so they are rarely sent for a colonoscopy which means the cancer is discovered later when it has spread and is more difficult to treat.

His youngest bowel cancer patient was a 29-year-old who had iron deficiency.

“When she first came to see me with her life ahead of her, she was a speech pathologist just about to get married,” he said.

Bowel cancer researcher Joanne Young from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Adelaide. Picture: Supplied

Sadly her cancer had spread to her lungs and she passed away within 12 months of her diagnosis.

Dr Nik Ding in part blames our diet of high fat, high red meat intake, alcohol, refined processed foods, and sugary drinks for the rise in bowel cancer for altering out gut microbes and leading to a predisposition to bowel cancer polyp formation.

“If young-onset bowel cancer is rising in Australia and around the world without an obvious cause, then our approach to screening should be modified,” said CEO of Bowel Cancer Australia Julien Wiggins.

“All major US guidelines now endorse average-risk bowel cancer screening from age 45, yet Australian guidelines continue to lag, despite screening proven to be cost-effective from this age,” he said.

Ms Young says the second thing we could do is encourage young people to have a colonoscopy if a family member has Type 2 diabetes and she wants the national bowel cancer screening program trial to include young people with Type 2 diabetes.