Colon cancer affects both men and women equally. According to the America Cancer Society, colon cancer is almost entirely preventable.

Prevention measures: Get screened regularly. Start including regular testing from the age of  50 and repeated every 10 years. A colonoscopy not only diagnoses colon cancer, but it also allows your doctor to detect and remove polyps before they could become cancerous. Other screening options include a faecal occult blood test, where your doctor checks your poop for blood that could indicate cancer.

2. Endocrine System –  Thyroid cancer

Thyroid cancers are a very real concern with numbers having more than doubled in the last twenty years. Doctors reckon there is no need to panic but rather that they are picking up more incidental cases when we do MRIs or CT scans for other reasons. Common causes for concern are recurrent migraines or neck pain.

Prevention measures: If you or your doctor detect a small nodule, monitor it and do not rush into surgery. Should you require surgery, you will need to take thyroid replacement hormone for the rest of your life.

3. Reproductive Organs – Endometrial cancer

This type of cancer also called uterine cancer, predominantly affects women over the age of sixty or postmenopausal women. At this point in time, there aren’t any good screening tests to find this cancer early. (Cynthia Thomson, PhD, RD, director of the Cancer Prevention and Control program at the University of Arizona Cancer Center.)

Prevention measures: Maintain a healthy weight. Endometrial cancer is twice as common in overweight women, and more than three times as common in obese women (American Cancer Society). Fat cells secrete the hormone oestrogen, which is known to trigger cancerous changes. The best advice is regular hormonal screening and birth control while you are premenopausal. Just 5 years of use reduces endometrial cancer risk by 25% (2015 UK study).