Colon cancer is one of the most treatable kinds of cancers. Colon cancer is primarily a hereditary disease. Nowadays, it is one of the most common diseases that affect equally both men and women, aged over 50 and 60 years, but these people are not the only ones affected. Many young people are diagnosed with colon cancer too. However, if detected early, the disease is treatable.

Prevention is the first step in curing colon cancer and knowing the risk factors of the disease the best chance to detect it before it becomes a real problem. Because the symptoms of colon cancer appear only when the disease is already in an advanced stage, and chances of cure are very low, you have to be extra careful about any sign that may tell you that something is wrong. If someone in your family had colon cancer the risk of developing the disease is higher for you, because colon cancer seems to be a hereditary disease.



If you want to reduce your chances in developing colon cancer, you should have a healthy diet, a balanced and rich in fruits, vegetables and fiber diet. You should quit smoking also. Another risk factor it the inflammations of the digestive tract. Lack of exercise should be replaced with regular exercises in fresh air. Diet high in fat should be completely avoided, as well as heavy drinking.

If smoking is considered a risk factor in developing colon cancer, what about passive smoking. Second hand smoke is a colon cancer risk but not a primary one. If in lung cancer cases, the passive smoke is considered a risk factor almost as important as the active smoking, in colon cancer some researchers consider that second hand smoking alone can not determine the disease development. However, it is a risk factor, because after many years of being a subject of passive smoking, your lungs may look the same as the lungs of a smoker.



Second hand smoke as a colon cancer risk should not be ignored. The fact about colon cancer is that there is not a single cause, or a group of causes that determine the disease. This is way passive smoking with an unhealthy diet and the lack of regular exercises can increase the risk of developing colon cancer. In general, pollution is one of the colon cancer causes, although the exact influence of this risk factor has not been established. Second hand smoke and colon cancer risks should be avoided as much as possible because although the disease is not difficult to treat if discovered early, the absence of symptoms makes that most colon cancer cases are diagnosed in last stages, when the disease has already spread in the patients’ body.