Dodge the Third Most Lethal Cancer? You Can Do It!

If there were a 1 in 19 chance that your house would be flooded in your lifetime, you'd make darn sure you had insurance. Yet 1 in 19 Americans (and 1 in 14 Canadian men; 1 in 15 Canadian women) will be diagnosed with colon cancer at some point. And many --maybe you -- aren't signing up for insurance against it ravaging your internal house. A combination of making a few lifestyle tweaks and getting screened for colorectal cancer can go a long way toward protecting you. In fact, screening is such a powerful tool that there's a nearly 90% chance for eradicating this type of cancer when it's found early.

Worried a test will find something? Then increase the chances that it won't. The usual wreck-your-health hit parade raises your risk of this cancer, so avoid these things: being obese, being sedentary, eating a diet high in red or processed meats, consuming alcohol heavily, and not eating enough fruits and vegetables. (Doesn't sound like you, right? Great. We're doing our jobs!)

Then knock your risk down even more by filling up on these strategies:

• Make yourself a spinach omelet. And have a banana with breakfast, too. These foods are good sources of B6, and people who get the most of this vitamin (about 4 milligrams a day) reduce their risk of colorectal cancer by 20% to 30%.


• Toss broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage into your stir-fry. Part of the Brassica family of vegetables, these contain compounds called isothiocyanates. They turn on a gene (the GSTM1 gene, if you want to get technical) that produces a protein that causes many colorectal cancer cells to commit suicide.


• Savor some salmon. In a large 22-year study, men who ate fish five times a week had a 40% lower risk of colorectal cancer than guys who didn't. Might have been something in the fish that helped their colons, or might be that the fish knocked red meat out of their diets. Why we specify salmon: It's packed with vitamin D (to the tune of 500 international units in 3 ounces), a nutrient that can help stave off this cancer. Salmon's only a start on D, though: If you're under age 60, you need 1,000 international units of D a day, 1,200 if you're over that age.


• Feast on whole-wheat pasta. And enjoy other nonsugary foods that don't rush into your bloodstream. When foods with a high glycemic index -- sugar-filled refined ones, like Ring Dings and Pop-Tarts that spike your blood sugar -- are paired with a sluggish insulin response, you get an environment that colon tumors like.


• Serve a veggie platter with your special bean dip. Beans, as well as celery, radishes, cucumbers, peppers, and onions are high in flavonols, compounds that scare away colon polyps in people who've already had them. Studies have found that diets high in flavonols were 76% less likely to be associated with recurrent advanced-stage polyps.


• Down some baby aspirin -- every day. People who take two baby aspirin daily see colon cancer risk drop as much as 40%. (It cuts your risk of heart disease, stroke, and breast or prostate cancer, too.) Just check with your doc before you take it.

Stopping there is like being in the Olympics and not looking at your score. You need to get screened so you see how well you're doing, especially since colorectal cancer often doesn't come with symptoms.

If you're at average risk for colon cancer, that means doing an annual Hemoccult test after age 40, and getting a flexible sigmoidoscopy every 5 years and a colonoscopy every 10 years (more on these in another column). High-risk people (check if you're in that category at clevelandclinic.org/score) need to work with a doc to come up with the right screening schedule. More reasons for screening: Most cancers begin with a polyp that is easily removed at colonoscopy before it becomes a cancer. Since March is National Colorectal Cancer Awareness month, this is the time to make your appointment or get an at-home test if you're due. Here's the thing: What you did after that extra glass of wine last Saturday night is far more embarrassing than a colonoscopy. Schedule your test today.