My father is one of the most culturally out-of-touch people on Planet Earth. He's also a gastroenterologist so he heard about Boseman's passing through a clinical lens. Here's a summary of the latest information about colon cancer:

1/ Docs are seeing a sharp spike in colon cancer cases in young people (12% of total cases are under age 45), so much so that one professional organization has even recommended the lowering of your first colonoscopy screening from 50 => 45. They don't know why this is.

2/ Colon cancer is seemingly more aggressive in young people. They don't know why this is.

3/ Unlike other parts of the body, you can't just do a CT scan and see spots on the organs in order to diagnose cancer. The most effective way to detect colon cancer early is to do a colonoscopy.

4/ But young people don't get colonoscopies because they're not recommended until age 50! So how do you know if you have colon cancer? A few ways (fair warning, this is gonna get a little gross ):

5/ If you were to unfurl your colon (large intestine), it would be about 5 feet long! So generally, they divide things into the "upper" and "lower" regions. If you have cancer in your lower colon, you might find blood in your stool.

6/ If you have cancer in the upper region, you might have bowel obstruction or anemia. The last way is that the cancer spreads to another part of your body, like the liver, where it's more easily detected.

7/ The earlier you detect colon cancer, the better. This is why preventative screening (colonoscopies) emphasized so heavily and why a lot of work has been done over the past few years to de-emphasize the stigma around them (e.g. Katie Couric getting one live on air)

8/ So for us young people, what should we do? Unfortunately, at this time, there are no answers. For most of us, preventative colonoscopies are probably not worthwhile.

9/ There are some interesting new non-invasive detection techniques, like looking at DNA in your stool. But these have a long way to go: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5235652/

10/ Honestly, the best thing us young folks can do is eat right, exercise regularly, and get good sleep regularly. By staying in tune with our bodies, we can more easily recognize when something is out of whack (which is when we can turn to the professionals!)

11/ If you have specific questions, let me know and I can proxy them to my father. And if you want to see one of the most-acclaimed gastroenterologist in the country[0], I'm sure I can help you find an open slot in his schedule

[0] https://www.healthgrades.com/physician/dr-robert-buccini-y5csr