If you’re worried about colon cancer and can’t find answers online, you just might find the answers to your questions in the articles below.
Bowel movements or “stools” form as food is digested and nutrients are absorbed in the small intestine, leaving waste material.
This waste has to be expelled, so it then enters the large intestine. This tract is where colon cancer can occur.
It’s also where water is absorbed, and gut bacteria break down remaining substances, forming stool.
The rectum stores stool until signals from nerves trigger the urge to “go.”
Muscles in the rectum and anus then expel your BMs.
Stool consistency depends on diet, hydration, gut health and transit time through the intestines.
The consistency can also be affected by an obstruction in the colon or rectum. That obstruction could be hardened fecal matter (constipation), a colon polyp, or, colon cancer.
A symptom of colon cancer that nearly health concsious person has heard of is that of narrow, or thin BMs. Sometimes they’re described as like a pencil or ribbon.
But colon cancer isn’t the only cause of elongated thin stools.
Just what goes on inside the body that causes stools to come out in ribbons or like pencils anyways?
The problem doesn’t always exist at rectal level.
Here’s how colon cancer can make BMs narrow and long.
Another symptom that’s relatively well-known is that of “tarry” or black bowel movements.
However, food or medications can also very much darken stools.
But there are differences.
Symptoms of IBS and Colon Cancer Nearly Identical
You should never assume that your new-onset digestive symptoms are “probably just IBS.”
The signs of IBS greatly overlap those of colon cancer.
However, the diagnostic process for each are completely different.
So if you’ve been having the classic signs of irritable bowel syndrome, you still need to get this confirmed by a gastroenterologist to rule out colon cancer; the symptoms are too similar to ignore.
And by the way, if you’re younger than middle age, this doesn’t make you immune to cancer of the colon.
This disease can strike even someone in their 30s.
