Bowel cancer is significantly impacting younger people with 1-in10 new cases in Australia now occurring in people under age 50.
 
New Australian and international research reveals bowel cancer rates in under 50s has increased considerably over the past three decades.
 
Alarmingly, over the next 10 years worldwide, it is estimated that 25% of rectal cancers and 10-12% of colon cancers will be diagnosed in people under age 50.
 

Bowel Cancer Australia today launched a bold new awareness campaign, voiced by internationally acclaimed actress, Miriam Margolyes, for Bowel Cancer Awareness Month 2022.
 
The new advertising campaign, Home to one of Australia’s most preventable cancers, features a computer-generated female model to create a high-impact commercial that focuses on polyps growing inside a ‘talking bowel’.
 
Ms Margolyes was enthusiastic in providing the ‘talking bowel’ with its own unique personality.
 

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Bowel Cancer Australia's Bowel Care Nutritionist, Teresa, is an expert in bowel cancer recipes and nutritional information.
 

Fruit and vegetables are an excellent source of fibre, and with 30% of your dietary fibre needing to derive from food sources, adding fruit and vegetable into your daily diet is an excellent way to achieve this.

An estimated 900 Australians who are diagnosed with bowel cancer each year under the age of 50 will have an underlying genetic cause, so it's important to understand the most common one, Lynch Syndrome.
 
Lynch Syndrome is an inherited genetic mutation which gives people an increased chance of developing certain cancers during their lifetime, often at a younger age than the general population. One of these cancers is commonly bowel cancer.
 

Higher vitamin D consumption, mainly from dietary sources, may help protect against young-onset bowel cancer or precancerous bowel polyps, according to a study published in the journal Gastroenterology.
 
It is the first research to show such an association and could potentially lead to recommendations for higher vitamin D intake to reduce bowel cancer risk in adults under the age of 50.
 

Bowel Cancer Australia welcomes the listing of Braftovi (encorafenib) on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) from 1 January 2022 as a treatment option in combination with Erbitux (cetuximab) for patients with BRAF V600E-variant metastatic bowel cancer who have not responded to a prior systemic therapy. 
 
Around 1-in-10 patients diagnosed with metastatic bowel cancer have the BRAF mutation.
 

Drinking sugar-sweetened beverages during adolescence increases the risk of developing bowel cancer in females under age 50 according to research published in the journal Gut, supporting public health calls for a reduction in sugar consumption.
 
Compared with women who drank less than one 226 gram serving of sugar-sweetened beverages per week, those who drank two or more servings per day had just over twice the risk of developing young-onset bowel cancer.
 

“When I was first diagnosed with bowel cancer, looking after my mental health was one of those things that was at the bottom of my list because I was trying to stay alive physically,” said Wendy, a mother of three, who was diagnosed with metastatic bowel cancer last year.

Although focusing on the body is incredibly important, so too is the state of your mind.