The maxim “disease enters by mouth” is not only applicable to most gastrointestinal infectious diseases, but also to rectal cancer, which brings great harm to human beings. A lot of studies and examples prove that the prevention of colorectal cancer is mainly through changing bad lifestyle and bad dietary habits.
The incidence of bowel cancer is increasing, but if detected early, bowel cancer is also the most curable cancer. Bowel cancer usually develops from benign polyps. These rice-like polyps can grow to the size of a person’s fist. Removing these benign polyps before they become malignant is the best way to prevent bowel cancer, with a survival rate of about 90 percent. However, most bowel cancer patients go to the hospital 2 to 3 months after the onset of symptoms. By then, the cancer cells have already spread. Once this leads to complications such as bowel obstruction or bowel perforation, the patient’s survival rate is greatly reduced. Unfortunately, 40% of bowel cancer patients are already very sick when they first go to the hospital for examination. If a person has frequent symptoms such as constipation, diarrhea, blood in the stool, abdominal pain, and a family history of bowel cancer, he or she is likely to have colorectal cancer.
The common symptoms are.
1.Changes in bowel habits and stool properties: often early symptoms, mostly manifested as increased frequency of bowel movements, diarrhea, constipation, blood, pus and mucus in stool.
2, abdominal pain: one of the early symptoms, often inaccurately localized persistent vague pain, or only abdominal discomfort or bloating, when there is obstruction, the abdominal pain is aggravated or paroxysmal colic.
3. abdominal mass: it is mostly the tumor itself, sometimes it can be the accumulated feces in the proximal intestinal lumen of the obstruction. Most of the tumors are hard and nodular, such as transverse colon and sigmoid colon cancer may have a certain degree of activity; if the tumor penetrates and is complicated by infection, the mass is fixed and has obvious pressure pain.
4.Symptoms of intestinal obstruction: it is generally a late symptom, mostly manifested as low-level incomplete intestinal obstruction, mainly manifested as abdominal distension and constipation, abdominal distension and pain or paroxysmal colic, and when complete obstruction occurs, the symptoms will intensify. Left-sided colon cancer can sometimes have acute complete colon obstruction as the first symptom.
5. Systemic symptoms: anemia, emaciation, weakness, low fever, etc. In late stage, liver enlargement, jaundice, swelling, ascites, anterior rectal mass, enlarged supraclavicular lymph nodes and cachexia may appear.
Risk factors of bowel cancer and preventive measures
Bad dietary habits
Long-term consumption of high-fat and high-protein foods. High-fat fine foods refer to foods with high fat and low fiber, which are more likely to induce colorectal cancer. Because these foods are rich in fat, fatty diet can increase the risk of colon cancer. The most likely mechanism is that fatty diet increases the excretion of bile acids, which eventually increases the exposure of colonic mucosa to toxins, nutrients and cancer promoters. These foods remain in the large intestine for a longer period of time and are prone to the formation of carcinogens.
Preventive measures.
1. It is recommended to reduce the intake of animal fat and eat more green vegetables and fruits as well as foods rich in fiber and starch. For example, potatoes, cereals, rice, pasta, etc.
(1) Increase the intake of fiber-rich cereals
The relative risks (HR) of colorectal cancer for daily intake of 10 g of total dietary fiber, fruit fiber, vegetable fiber, legume fiber and cereal fiber are 0, 90, 0, 93, 0, 98, 0, 62 and 0, 90, respectively. The daily intake of 90 g of whole grains (including whole wheat rye, whole wheat bread, oatmeal, whole grain cereal, high fiber cereal, brown rice and oatmeal) had an incidence HR of 0, 83.
The study pointed out that whole grains are beneficial, and it is not just the fiber content that is beneficial. Different food groups in the study had different dietary fiber, and it is not clear why cereal fiber is associated with the aforementioned reduced risk of disease, while dietary fiber in some types of foods (e.g., fruits) does not have a similar effect. Therefore, increasing the dietary fiber content of refined foods may be far from being able to achieve the effects of whole grain food intake.
(2) Eating more fruits and vegetables can prevent the occurrence of bowel cancer
Sparse fruits are rich in fiber, and the fiber may have the following effects on tumor prevention.
1.Reducing the contact between colon and cancerous substances by speeding up the transport time of feces in the colon.
2.Increasing the amount of feces may dilute or affect the concentration of carcinogenic substances in the intestine. Research shows that when the amount of stool is 100g per day, the risk of colon cancer is 3 times higher than that of 200g per day. It is believed that the amount of bowel movement is related to the loss of intestinal mucosa DNA injury caused by fecal fluid in the lumen.
3.Favorable intestinal flora change the metabolism of carcinogenic bile acids reduce the formation of secondary bile acids.
4.The large amount of vitamins contained in fruits and vegetables can prevent the production and growth of cancer cells.
What are the fruits with anti-cancer effects: The American Institute of Cancer Research points out that consuming at least 5 servings of vegetables and fruits every day can reduce the risk of cancer by 20%. More than a dozen fruits known to be effective in reducing the chance of cancer include: strawberries, oranges, tangerines, apples, cantaloupe, watermelon, lemons, grapes, grapefruits, pineapples, kiwis and so on. These fruits contain special ingredients that are difficult to replace with other foods in the prevention of colorectal cancer.
(3) Increase starchy foods
Several studies have found that the more starchy foods are consumed, the lower the incidence of colon and rectal cancer. For example, the incidence of colon cancer among Australians, who eat mainly meat, is four times higher than among Chinese, who eat mainly starchy foods.
Starchy food mainly inhibits intestinal cancer in two ways: first, when starch enters the intestine, it helps increase feces through a series of reactions, prompting colon excretion and accelerating the excretion of carcinogenic metabolites; second, starch in the intestine will produce a large amount of butyrate through the action of fermentation enzymes, and experiments have proved that butyrate is an effective inhibitor of cancer cell growth, which can directly inhibit colon bacterial reproduction and prevent the production of potentially carcinogenic cells in the lining of the colon. It can directly inhibit the growth of colon bacteria and prevent the production of potentially carcinogenic cells in the lining of the colon. How to choose starchy foods in your life.
The so-called starchy foods mainly refer to staple foods rich in carbohydrates, such as rice, corn, wheat, etc., and root vegetables, such as potatoes, yams, potatoes, etc. In addition, they also include various kinds of beans and fruits containing more starch, such as bananas.
For busy office workers, whole grain foods such as cereal bread that are coarsely processed in supermarkets without removing the crust should be preferred. When buying cereal bread, pay attention to identify: if the first ingredient list is cereal, it means that it is rich in cereal; if cereal ingredients in other ingredients or sugar behind, it means that this food is not much cereal ingredients; another method is: hold the bread in your hand, if you feel the bread dense and compact, there are obvious wheat grains, it is cereal-rich bread. In addition to cereal bread, made of buckwheat noodles, cold noodles, pancakes, steamed dumplings and rice and other staple foods are also good choices. Rich in B vitamins, vitamin E cereal porridge, such as Lappa porridge, eight-pot lotus seed porridge, lotus leaf porridge, etc. is more suitable for middle-aged and elderly people.
Other undesirable factors.
Poor cooking methods can increase the carcinogenic substances in meat foods
Deep-frying and barbecue will decompose carcinogenic substances under high temperature. We usually fry at home, when the oil is smoking, it is above 160℃. When we fry fish or meat, the protein will be denatured and carcinogenic substances will be decomposed. In addition, grilled food such as lamb skewers contain benzbic, which is a strong carcinogen; there are also some pickled and smoked foods, which can also induce colorectal cancer when eaten frequently.
Other dietary habits that induce colorectal cancer
In addition to the above, smoking, alcohol, stimulating food and pickled food are all bad dietary habits that may induce colorectal cancer. The large amount of carcinogenic substances produced by smoking is an important factor in inducing malignant tumors, especially for colon cancer. Statistics show that even if smokers quit smoking, the incidence of colon cancer is still much higher than the general population. Alcohol is an acidic beverage, and tumors are more likely to occur in people with acidic constitution. In addition, alcohol as a solvent of organic matter will increase the absorption of carcinogenic substances in food by the intestines and stomach.
2.Bad lifestyle: more sitting and less moving, lack of exercise
To prevent colorectal cancer, we should advocate a healthy lifestyle
In addition to reasonable control of awareness, it is also very important to promote healthy lifestyle. In recent years, colorectal cancer is getting younger and younger, especially some elites from all walks of life around 40 years old are more likely to suffer from colorectal cancer. Their sedentary lifestyle, irregular diet due to busy work, disrupted physiological rhythm of the digestive tract, poor intestinal tract operation, high work pressure, which affects the change of stool function, etc. are all factors that make them susceptible to colorectal cancer. Research shows that exercise can reduce the risk of colon cancer by half.
People should not neglect exercise because of busy work. Although some people do not have diseases, they often have weakness, dizziness and memory loss, which means that their bodies are in a subhealthy state, on the edge of health and disease. In this state, human immunity tends to decline and the possibility of getting tumors increases, while proper exercise can help people get out of the sub-healthy state.
Therefore, people should choose suitable exercise methods according to their physical condition, such as playing ball, jogging, doing exercises, walking, etc., so as to enhance physical strength gradually and keep a good state of mind, which can help to prevent tumor.
3.Family hereditary factors
25% of bowel cancer occurs in families with history of bowel cancer; most members of some families are prone to polyps, and if they are allowed to develop, the incidence rate of bowel cancer is also 25%. This is because 50% of people over the age of 60 will have colon polyps.
Preventive measures: The risk of first-degree relatives (parents, children, siblings) of colorectal cancer patients younger than 40 years old is 6 times higher than that of 55 years old. Therefore, family members with a family history of colorectal cancer, especially those with an incidence age below 40, should pay great attention and have regular health checkups.
4.Precancerous lesions
Pre-cancerous colorectal lesions include: ulcerative colitis, adenoma in the intestine and colorectal polyps.
Preventive measures.
Early detection and early treatment: timely treatment of gastrointestinal diseases, leaving no hidden problems. Various chronic intestinal diseases, such as ulcerative colitis, granuloma formed by schistosomiasis, etc. have a direct relationship with the occurrence of colorectal cancer. The longer the duration of the disease, the higher the possibility of colorectal cancer. If patients are found or suspected to have these diseases, they need timely treatment and early cure to avoid the hidden danger of malignant transformation.
In particular, most studies show that 80% of colorectal cancers are related to rectal adenomas. Therefore, patients found to have rectal adenomas need to be removed early to avoid malignant transformation.