• Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Cancer can appear in anyone, at any time, no matter how healthy you are. In fact your body is constantly generating the precursors to cancer due to unavoidable genetic damage (age, sunlight, cosmic radiation, pure random chance during cell division), but has processes to eliminate them before they spread. Cancer is when these processes fail and the damaged cell is allowed to reproduce. Being healthy only reduces the number of dice you’re rolling.

    Colorectal cancer is especially insidious as the colon is constantly shedding cells (the more often cells split, the higher the cancer risk), and often there aren’t any symptoms until it’s too late. Everyone should get checked out periodically.