Free gift in the post that could save your life

It’s a bowel cancer test and I’ve just had mine ... but this time it’s not being shown on television!

AlITTlE gift from the NHS arrived through my letterbox this week. It contained a small plastic vial with a tiny brush and an invitation to post them a sample.

The ‘gift’ is in fact a faecal immunochemical test (FIT) and is part of the NHS bowel cancer screening programme. And while it might not be everyone’s idea of a great present, I was delighted, as this test can be a lifesaver.

You use the kit to collect a very small sample of poo and then post it to the NHS (it provides a stamped addressed envelope). The sample will be tested for signs of blood and if these are detected, you may be asked to have further tests. It is a cheap and effective way of doing mass screening and I’m a big fan.

Bowel cancer is very common — but also very treatable, if caught early. But if it’s missed it is often fatal — 16,000 people die from it in the UK every year; it is the second most common cause of cancer death, after lung cancer.

I’ve known people who’ve had bowel cancer, including lynn Faulds Wood, the former BBC Watchdog presenter, who died last year at the age of 72.

Although it tends to occur in people over the age of 50, thanks to junk food and rising obesity rates, it’s increasingly striking younger people. Rates are rising in the under-40s, but falling in older groups, thanks to screening.

In the UK, anyone aged 60 or over is automatically sent an at-home testing kit in the post (although of course whatever your age, if you have symptoms such as persistent changes in your bowel habits, talk to your GP about testing).

JUST how effective it is was confirmed in a recent study by Exeter University, where they offered the FIT kit to everyone over 50 with suspicious symptoms and found that of the 3,890 patients checked, 618 had traces of blood in their samples, and further tests revealed that 43 had bowel cancer.

Further tests generally means having a colonoscopy or sigmoidoscopy — basically a camera on the end of a flexible tube inserted via your rectum. I had this done six years ago, as part of a documentary I was making, that explored which medical screening tests are worth having. Bowel cancer screening got the thumbs up, so I agreed to give it a go, with a camera crew recording every moment.

Apart from the mild embarrassment of being filmed while it happened, the procedure was fast and painless. It helped that Maggie Vance, the nurse, was hugely enthusiastic about her work.

Things started well, but on the way out she found a polyp, a small growth on the wall of my guts.

‘This is nothing to worry about, but I am going to remove it and then send it to the lab anyway,’ Maggie told me, reassuringly. Even so, I was a little concerned.

Fortunately, like most polyps, it was benign, but around 3 per cent become cancerous.

The point of bowel cancer screening is to pick up cancers before they spread. But what can you do to reduce your risk of developing bowel cancer in the first place? The main risk factors include: being over 50; a family history of the disease; or a history of noncancerous growths (i.e. polyps) in your bowel; and longstanding inflammatory bowel disease such as Crohn’s; or type 2 diabetes.

If you’re overweight, losing a few inches round the waist can really help, as it reduces your risk of type 2 diabetes and because excess fat, particularly round the middle, means higher rates of inflammation, which can lead to cancer.

And eating plenty of fibre-rich food, such as wholegrains and vegetables, helps as it has an antiinflammatory effect. There is also some evidence that cutting back on processed meat, such as bacon and sausages, may help, though benefits are likely to be modest.

In a study by Oxford University, which looked at the eating habits of almost half a million people aged 40 to 69 for six years, 2,609 people developed bowel cancer, with those who ate larger amounts of red or processed meat being at higher risk than those who didn’t.

In the low red/processed meat group, 40 people per 10,000 went on to develop bowel cancer, while among those who regularly ate 76g or more a day of red or processed meat (the equivalent of a couple of slices of bacon or ham), the bowel cancer rate was 48 per 10,000. In other words, eating red or processed meat every day appeared to raise your risk of bowel cancer over six years by 0.08 per cent. Chicken or fish didn’t have any effect.

My wife Clare and I have largely given up bacon and are cutting back on the red meat, but that is mainly for ethical and environmental reasons.

If you want to avoid bowel cancer your best bet is take part in regular, free screening. I’m about to stick my sample in the post and hopefully, in the next couple of weeks, get the all-clear. Otherwise, I will probably be asked back for another sigmoidoscopy, though this time without a film crew in tow. The nation sighs in relief!