Two fit and healthy young men who were diagnosed with stage three colon cancer in their 30s have revealed the symptoms not to miss.
Chris Lopez, from Texas, was lean, regularly worked out at the gym and ate a balanced, high protein diet which he adhered to by meticulously meal-prepping.
But the 30-year-old began suffering an intense ‘stabbing’ pain in his stomach that wouldn’t go away. He also lost weight despite eating the same, dropping from 175 to 145lbs on his six-foot frame.
Initially, Mr Lopez put it down to food poisoning as he’d just been on vacation, assuming he’d just eaten ‘sushi, some fish or something that was undercooked’. He was prescribed antibiotics and then an anti-parasite medication when that didn’t work.
But after he became ‘like a skeleton’ and noticed blood in his stool, he went to doctors who found a grapefruit-sized tumor in his colon.
Meanwhile, CrossFit enthusiast Chris Rodriguez revealed how he was diagnosed with cancer at 35 years old, despite also eating clean foods high in protein and fiber.
He started to suffer from belly ache and constipation in 2023, which wouldn’t go away. This led the Minnesota native to book an appointment with his doctor, with scans eventually revealing a four-inch tumor in his rectum.
The conventional explanation for the rise in colon cancers in young people is bad diets, sedentary lifestyles and obesity — but doctors say they’re increasingly seeing patients like Lopez and Rodriguez who are young, fit and healthy.
Pictured above is Chris Lopez, who was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer at age 30 years, and Chris Rodriguez, who was diagnosed with stage 3 rectal cancer at age 35 years
The above graph shows the increase in US colorectal cancers in men and women from 2000 through 2021
Both men are now in remission, but have revealed their cases to warn others of the early warning signs to get checked.
They also emphasized that it was particularly important for young patients to know the symptoms and seek medical attention promptly, because it can take months to get a diagnosis — raising the risk of the cancer spreading.
Revealing how he was diagnosed, Mr Lopez — who is a chef — said: ‘I told my doctor my stomach is feeling worse than before, and I told him I noticed blood in my stool.
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‘I was scared because that’s the first time I’ve seen that… when I went to the bathroom, I just saw blood.
‘He thought it was maybe a parasite, so he prescribed an anti-parasitic medicine.’
Eight months after his symptoms began, a gastroenterologist finally ordered a colonoscopy just to be on the safe side.
By the time the cancer was caught, it was stage three B — meaning it had spread to nearby lymph nodes but was yet to spread around the body.
Mr Lopez was diagnosed in December 2019, and went through chemotherapy and radiation therapy to shrink the tumor — and then had surgery to remove it in 2021.
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He is now in remission, but goes for scans once a year to ensure the cancer hasn’t returned. He is also now married and has a three-year-old daughter.
Mr Rodriguez — who is an improv actor — said: ‘I wasn’t feeling super well, like I just felt a little bit off, so I decided to go to the doctor.
‘The next thing I knew I was in surgery, and the next thing I knew after I was in chemotherapy.’
Describing the moment he was diagnosed, he said: ‘When I got this test and diagnosis at an age you don’t expect, it felt so incredibly out of left field.
‘In my mind, I wasn’t supposed to be looking out for this.’
Mr Rodriguez was diagnosed in 2023, and had chemotherapy every two weeks for 16 weeks to treat his four-inch tumor.
He then had radiation and surgery to remove the tumor, before being declared cancer free.
‘You need to be educated about this cancer creeping up into earlier ages,’ Mr Rodriguez said.
‘I will talk about it to anyone, any day. I’m being open so other people will have it on their radar.’
Once seen as a disease of the elderly, colon cancer is surging among under-50s who are not usually at risk — with cases rising by 50 percent over the last three decades.
Some doctors say blaming the shift on unhealthy diets and obesity alone is too simplistic.
All sorts of other factors are now been scrutinized — including pollution, microplastics and the artificial additives used in foods.
Some have even blamed exposure to artificial light, saying it can disrupt the body’s natural sleep-wake cycle, disrupting gut microbiota and making someone more prone to damaging mutations in gut cells.
And restrictive alternative diets, like vegan and vegetarian options, have also come under scrutiny, with experts warning that meat-alternative foods could raise the risk of the disease.
Studies also suggest that eating a lot of red and processed meat could raise the risk.
Early warning signs of colon cancer in young people include a change in bathroom habits, blood in stool, rectal bleeding with bright red blood, diarrhea or constipation, unexpected weight loss and cramping or belly pain.
