Dr. Trisha Pasricha

I'm worried about bleeding from something more serious like cancer, for example.

Cancer is one of those things that I would say when I did my medical training, like in medical school, it would be something that I'd worry about for an older person, 50s, 60s, 70s.

I'd say, oh, we got to make sure this is not cancer.

Today, in 2026, we have to make sure if you're 20, 30s, 40s, that we're not missing cancer too.

It's one of those red flag symptoms, no matter your age.

So we've been seeing this really worrisome trend of rising colorectal cancer cases and other kinds of cancers as well.

But in my world, colorectal cancer, specifically in young people.

And we've been seeing that trend since the 1980s, 1990s, and it's persisting.

All the while, people who are a little bit older, those cancer rates are actually declining.

And the problem with younger people, and the reason why this conversation is so important, the reason why looking is so important and just knowing what your normal pattern is,

is because younger people often show up a little bit late to get care.

We miss this crucial window of a couple weeks, couple months where the sign, the symptom appeared, but we're waiting on it.

Or maybe even they see somebody, but that person, their provider, they're not so worried about it because you're otherwise young and healthy.

And that's a classic scenario that if you have symptoms like new rectal bleeding, so like the bright red, the blood, the dark, dark, you know, the black tarry stool, abdominal pain,

And then most nebulously, a change in your bowel habits could be a sign that there's something off, worrisome for colorectal cancer.

That's really nebulous.

Like a change in bowel habits could mean, is it suddenly softer than it should be?

Is it suddenly pencil thin and it wasn't like that before?

These are things you're not going to really pick up on unless you're paying real close attention.

And again, you know, my goal here is not to scare anybody, but it's really just to say that sometimes there's a perfectly reasonable explanation.