Someone whose brother was recently diagnosed with colon cancer came and ask me "I am worried, my brother has colon cancer. How do I avoid this?"
Well, before we look into prevention of cancer, we need to know what cause the cancer. In general, cancer could be cause by the gene (i.e. if you have a sibling or parents who has cancer, you risk is higher) and also carcinogen exposure (in this case of colon cancer, it could be high consumption of meat products).
Cancer prevention acts in 2 folds. First, you would need to maintain a healthy lifestyle to reduce your risk. Second, if you have the risk, you would need early screening to pick up the disease early, and you may have a chance of a total cure.
Healthy lifestyle practices would include consume more vegetables and fruits which have been proven to reduce the risk of cancer. They contain anti-oxidants which could reduce your risk. Exercise to reduce fat would also decrease the risk.
For screening, you would need to look for a doctor who is familiar with risk assessment of cancer. By reviewing your age, family history of cancer etc.. he would be able to recommend certain relevant tests to screen for cancer. Not everyone needs all the screening test as some test comes with risk, eg colonoscopy to detect colon cancer has a small risk of causing gut perforation and it should only be done for those whose risk are high. Some GPs and all Oncologists and Cancer Epidemiologists like me would be able to do a proper risk assessment and recommend the relevent tests.
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