We don’t know what causes most bowel cancers, but we do know that some factors increase your risk of getting the disease. Some of these are things you can’t do anything about, for example, age and genetics. But you can make changes to your lifestyle to lower your risk of getting bowel cancer.

You are more at risk of getting bowel cancer if you have one or more of the following risk factors. This doesn’t mean that you will definitely get bowel cancer. Equally, if you don’t have any risk factors, it doesn’t mean you can’t get bowel cancer.

• Aged over 50
• A strong family history of bowel cancer
• A history of non-cancerous growths (polyps) in your bowel
• Longstanding inflammatory bowel disease such as Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis
• Type 2 diabetes
• An unhealthy lifestyle