I’m the healthiest person I know, but I’ve been hit with bowel cancer at 39 – my surgeon revealed intriguing reason why

A fit and healthy 39-year-old mother has been given a devastating bowel cancer diagnosis – and surgeons believe the food she ate as a child may have triggered the disease.

Danni Duncan, a fitness coach from Melbourne, Australia, said she developed bowel cancer that has started to spread to nearby organs, despite living an extremely healthy lifestyle. 

‘I am the freaking healthiest person I know, I do more things for my health than anyone I know,’ she said in a clip posted to her Instagram page. 

She added: ‘The last four years I have eaten 80-90 per cent whole foods, we use non toxic products at home, I don’t drink much alcohol, exercise every day and eat a high fibre diet.’

The mother-of-three said, with no family history of the disease, she had been floored by the news, given to her after a colonoscopy last month.

But she said that her surgeon had revealed why she, and an increasing number of young people like her, are at risk of developing the deadly cancer.  

‘He said chemicals in your foods, carcinogens through red meat, burnt, barbecued, bacon, ham, they are environmental factors which we got exposed to in the 90s and we didn’t know the long-term effects until now,’ she said.

Ms Duncan added that exposure to cleaning products as a child was another ‘environmental factor’ the medic had listed as a potential cause. 

In the wake of her diagnosis, she has urged parents like her to ‘stop feeding kids ultra-procesed foods’.

‘It does matter what you feed your kids, stop feeding your kids things that are not good for them, that are processed, that are full of s***,’ she said. 

‘You might think they’re fine, they’re fine now, but what are you really doing to your kids?

‘What detriment are you doing to your kids later on, without even realising it?’  

Ms Duncan had very few symptoms of the cancer, with the first sense something was wrong being strange, persistent fatigue.

Tests later revealed this was being caused by internal blood loss triggered by the tumour growing in her bowel.

She has since had surgery to remove the cancer, with the procedure also excising parts of her intestines and her entire appendix. 

In a follow-up post, Ms Duncan said tests of the removed tissue had revealed that her cancer was stage 2.

This means that the disease has started to spread outside the bowel lining, almost reaching nearby organs. However it has not yet grown into the lymph nodes, which is the typical route by which cancer spreads widely around the body.

However, Ms Duncan recently informed her followers medics told her there were signs that the cancer had been growing towards her lymph nodes, so she will need further consultations. 

Ms Duncan isn’t alone as a young, healthy person being given a life-changing bowel cancer diagnosis. 

Experts have noted a concerning, mysterious rise in bowel cancer cases among young adults.

A recent global study of the disease found rates of bowel cancer in under 50 year-olds are rising in 27 of 50 nations.

England is averaging a 3.6 per cent rise in younger adults every year – one of the highest increases recorded.

While the disease is linked to obesity, experts have noted that the disease seems to also be occurring in fit and healthy patients like Ms Duncan.

Some experts believe the explanation must lie in environmental factors young people have been exposed to more than previous generations.

While no ‘smoking gun’ has been found, there are multiple theories.

One of these is the ultra-processed foods, or UPFs, mentioned by Ms Duncan’s surgeon.

Others include microplastics, pollution, with one recent study pinning the surge on exposure to E.coli in food. 

Links to UPFs – which contain preservatives, emulsifiers and artificial colourings not found in a domestic kitchen – have not been proven.

Part of the problem is that the system used to classify if a food is a UPF is a food processing score.

This means both a junk food meal packed with salt, sugar and additives is just as much a UPF as a supermarket loaf of brown bread, despite the latter having some health benefits.

Therefore, unpicking which UPFs or their ingredients may be linked to bowel cancer risk is tricky. 

Charity Cancer Research UK (CRUK) states the current evidence linking UPFs to any cancer is ‘weak’ in part due to the aforementioned issues.

However, the charity does add that diet and specific foods we eat are linked to the disease.

It estimates that 13 per cent of bowel cancer cases diagnosed in the UK each year are caused by eating processed red meat. 

A further 11 per cent are linked to being overweight and obese due to poor diet and a lack of exercise. 

And 28 percent, nearly one in three, are linked to be people eating too little fibre, a nutrient UPFs are generally lacking. 

CRUK, while acknowledging the rise of bowel cancer cases in young adults, stresses that rates are still low, with only around one in 20 cases diagnosed in the UK each year in patients under the age of 50.

There are around 2,600 new bowel cancer cases in people aged 25-49 in Britain every year, and around 44,100 new cases among all ages.

Symptoms of the bowel cancer include changes in bowel movements such as diarrhoea or constipation, needing or feeling the need to empty your bowels more or less frequently, blood in the stool, stomach pain, bloating, unexpected weight loss and fatigue. 

Stomach pain, a lump in the stomach, bloating and fatigue are among other common signs. 

Around 44,000 cases of bowel cancer are diagnosed every year in the UK, with about 130,000 in the US.

The disease kills almost 17,000 Britons each year, with the death toll rising to about 50,000 in America.

Overall, just over half of bowel cancer patients are expected to be alive 10 years after their diagnosis.

However, survival rates vastly improve if the disease is caught early.

For stage two patients, like Ms Duncan, 85 per cent are expected to survive at least five years after being diagnosed.

This drops to 65 per cent for stage three patients and only 10 per cent for stage four, where the disease has spread across the body.