A new study has revealed that making healthier lifestyle choices after bowel cancer screening can lower your risk of developing bowel cancer and other serious long-term illnesses.
This discovery offers hope and guidance for people who want to take control of their health after screening.
Bowel cancer, also known as colorectal cancer, is one of the most common types of cancer worldwide. Norway has one of the highest rates of bowel cancer in the world. Past research has shown that about half of all bowel cancer cases could be avoided by living a healthy lifestyle.
This means not smoking, keeping a healthy weight, eating a balanced diet, exercising regularly, and drinking little or no alcohol. However, most earlier studies only looked at how people lived throughout their entire lives, not what happens if they change their habits after being screened for cancer.
Researchers have long wondered if bowel screening could be a “teachable moment”—a time when people are more willing to improve their lifestyle because they’re thinking about their health. But until now, there has been little evidence showing whether lifestyle changes at this point in time actually reduce the risk of bowel cancer.
In a new study published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology, researchers from the University of Oslo and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health explored exactly this question.
Markus Dines Knudsen, a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Nutrition at the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, led the work. The team used data from three large U.S. studies that followed only people who had undergone a colonoscopy.
Participants were asked about their lifestyle habits and diet before their screening and again several times afterward. The researchers gave each person a lifestyle score from 1 to 5 based on their habits. This score measured key risk factors such as smoking, body weight, physical activity, alcohol use, and diet.
Diet questions included how much red meat, processed meat, fiber, whole grains, dairy, and calcium they consumed. The researchers then followed the participants for up to 30 years to see who developed bowel cancer or other major chronic diseases.
The results were striking. For every single point of improvement in lifestyle after screening, the risk of bowel cancer dropped by 14%, and the risk of other chronic diseases fell by 11%.
For example, adding more exercise, losing weight, or reducing alcohol use could each count as a one-point improvement. This shows that even small positive changes after screening can make a real difference.
However, the opposite was also true. People whose lifestyle score worsened by two or more points had a 70% higher risk of bowel cancer and a 21% higher risk of chronic diseases compared to those whose lifestyle stayed the same.
This is especially noteworthy because all participants had already lowered their risk by getting screened. Despite that, unhealthy changes after screening sharply increased their risk.
Knudsen and his colleagues are now preparing a new study in Norway in collaboration with the Norwegian Cancer Registry. They will use Norway’s national bowel screening program to test how different types of support and follow-up can encourage people to adopt cancer-preventing lifestyle habits.
Over two years, they will track the results and, in the long term, see how these efforts affect cancer rates and mortality.
Bowel cancer is a serious problem in Norway, with about 5,000 new cases every year. People aged 55 and older can take a stool test every other year for 10 years as part of the national screening program. The goal is to find precancerous changes or bowel cancer early, when treatment is more effective.
This study is important because it shows that it’s never too late to make a difference. Even after being screened, people can lower their risk of bowel cancer and chronic diseases by improving their lifestyle. It also shows the risks of making unhealthy choices after screening.
By understanding these findings, healthcare providers can use bowel screening as an opportunity to guide patients toward healthier living. This could become a powerful tool for cancer prevention and improving public health.
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The study is published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology.
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