We’ve all heard the recommendation from doctors to test early on for breast or skin cancer. Still, another cancer is becoming more prevalent each year—colon cancer (also known as colorectal cancer). This type of cancer is becoming more commonplace across the board and specifically rising in younger people under 50.

In this blog, we’ll discuss the rate at which the younger population is getting diagnosed, when you should get tested, and what tests are the best option for you.

Colon cancer is rising for people under 50

For some time, colon cancer rates dropped, but from 2012 through 2016, it increased yearly by two percent in people younger than 50 and one percent in people 50 to 64. For people younger than 50, from 2020 to 2023, there was a nine percent increase in diagnosed cases. Colon cancer is the second most diagnosed cancer for men and women combined in the US. Along with the rising number of diagnosed cases, it’s also become more aggressive for people under 50.

So, why are colon cancer diagnoses among younger people on the rise? No one can pinpoint this, but the most significant risk factors for developing this illness are living a sedentary lifestyle, obesity, heavy drinking and smoking, high-fat diets, and other environmental factors. Since we can’t pinpoint precisely why this type of cancer is rising, testing for it as early as possible is critical. If you can test early enough, you can prevent the disease from getting worse and possibly, even prevent death.

When should you test for colon cancer?

As mentioned before, early testing and detection can be the key to prevention. There are a few risk factors to consider when testing for colon cancer. You should test if you have one or more of the risk factors below.

• 45 to 75 Years of age. The ages recommended to get tested for colon cancer are 45 to 75, but this can depend on if you already have one of the diseases listed below.
• Gastrointestinal/other types of diseases. If you have any of the diseases listed here, you should get tested as early as 45, or in specific cases, even sooner.
  • An inflammatory bowel disease such as Chron’s or Ulcerative Colitis.
  • A family history of colorectal cancer or colorectal polyps (masses in your colon that can become cancerous).
  • A genetic syndrome such as familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) external icon or hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer (Lynch syndrome).

What screening test/procedure is right for me?

Several screening tests are currently available on the market, as well as more traditional screening procedures. The test may be as simple as mailing in a specimen from the comfort of your home, so speak to your Primary Care Physician (PCP) about what they recommend. Below are the five types of screening tests.

1. Fecal occult blood test. This non-invasive test checks stool for blood that can only be seen with a microscope. A sample is placed on a card or container and sent to a doctor or a lab for testing.
2. Sigmoidoscopy. An invasive procedure involving a thin, tube-like instrument called a sigmoidoscope that looks inside the rectum and lower colon for polyps, abnormal areas, or cancer.
3. Colonoscopy. This is the most common procedure, and similar to sigmoidoscopy. The most significant difference is the colonoscope (small tube) is inserted through the rectum into the colon. Doctors can remove most polyps found while inside using this specific tube.
4. Virtual colonoscopy. This is a non-invasive procedure using a series of X-rays called “computed tomography” to take pictures of the colon. A computer then puts together those images and checks for any irregularities.
5. DNA stool test. Similar to a fecal occult blood test, this non-invasive test checks DNA in the stool cells for genetic changes that may develop into colon cancer.

The bottom line is this — don’t forget about colon cancer! With this type of cancer clearly on the rise, especially among the younger population, early detection is the key to managing this illness. Consult your PCP if you have any of the risk factors mentioned in this blog. Healthcare2U’s Direct Primary Care membership connects you with a PCP who is your care advocate and can educate you on which screening test is best for you. Read more about our membership on our website or contact us to speak to a representative.

Chances are you, or someone you know, has a chronic disease. The CDC finds that six in ten adults have a chronic illness in the US, and four in ten have two or more. Most are preventable by engaging in activities such as eating healthier, exercising, and cutting out habits like smoking and drinking. Unfortunately, a 2022 study found that 93 percent of Americans are unhealthy, so the likelihood of people taking these steps to prevent a possible health condition is unlikely. Not only do these diseases cost the individual time and money, they also cost their employers. We’ll discuss the top chronic diseases, how much money employers spend managing them, and an easy solution for both parties.

The top five chronic diseases in the US

As mentioned, chronic diseases are illnesses you most often gain through an unhealthy lifestyle. Chronic diseases are slower to develop and progress over time, not to be confused with acute diseases, which come on rapidly and require urgent or short-term care. Below are five prevalent chronic diseases in the US.

1. Heart disease
2. Cancer
3. Diabetes
4. Hypertension
5. Arthritis

Another chronic illness that many overlook is mental health. According to a recent Gallup poll, 19 percent of all US workers rate their mental health as fair or poor. Four out of ten workers also said their job has an extremely negative (seven percent) or somewhat negative (33 percent) impact on their mental health. While the conversation about mental health in the workplace is a relatively newer topic, the trend of companies prioritizing employees’ mental health and including health benefits offerings around them is growing.

How much money do employers spend on employees’ chronic diseases?

Employees with chronic conditions like those above can be difficult for companies to manage financially. According to the CDC, 90 percent of the nation’s $4.1 trillion annual healthcare costs are for patients with chronic diseases. Five chronic diseases or risk factors (high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes, physical inactivity, and obesity) cost employers in the US $36.4 billion a year due to employee absenteeism.

An Avidon Health report highlighted the cost of unhealthy habits for organizations per employee. Here are some of the key findings pertaining to the above risk factors mentioned:

The study found that the cost impact of the unhealthy habits above equals around $3,600 per employee per year.

As mentioned earlier, mental health also comes into play when discussing employee absenteeism costs for employers. In the US workforce, the workdays missed by employees suffering from one or more mental health issues cost the country $47.6 billion annually.

Seeing a doctor once a year can make a big difference in preventing chronic diseases

A large part of preventing these types of conditions is consulting your doctor. A yearly physical is recommended to check if you are at risk for developing a chronic disease. Conditions such as type 2 diabetes will usually warn you when you’re nearing this diagnosis — as 70 percent of people with prediabetes, a precursor to the illness, are later diagnosed. During your physical, your doctor can test and even diagnose if you have a chronic disease. If you’re nearing a diagnosis, they can set you up with a treatment plan to prevent it.

How Healthcare2U’s Direct Primary Care membership can lower employer costs associated with chronic diseases?

It’s worth noting that affordable and easy-to-use healthcare options result in a stable and happier work environment for employees. The effects increase productivity and save employers money. One solution that offers this type of healthcare is direct primary care (DPC). DPC is a steadily growing solution in the US that utilizes an integrated benefit model to overcome affordability restrictions of modern-day healthcare and to address long-standing accessibility barriers to managing preventative care, chronic conditions, and new health issues in a timely fashion before emergencies arise.

Healthcare2U’s DPC membership focuses on preventing, detecting, and managing 13 prevalent chronic disease states. This unlimited benefit is included in the membership for just $10 a visit. Having these benefits allows members peace of mind and continuity of care.

Healthcare2U helps employers manage the exorbitant cost of chronic disease by offering affordable, quality care and providing tools to prevent them from developing. Members also receive unlimited access to patient advocates that direct them through their benefits. Benefits include unlimited Virtual Primary Care for no out-of-pocket cost, unlimited in-office acute visits for $10 per visit and $25 urgent care visits, an annual physical with four basic labs and generous pharmaceutical discounts. Contact us to learn more about Healthcare2U and how it can help alleviate the costs of chronic illnesses for employers.

When is the best time to work out? Some people prefer the morning, as the gyms are quieter, and they can start the day off energized; some say the afternoon is best so they can burn off steam from a demanding workday. According to scientists, the morning is the best time to work out. You’ll need to do some of your own research to figure out which option is best for you. Here we’ll learn why morning workouts are (generally) better, their possible downsides, and how to really make the most of them.

Reasons why morning workouts are best

Once you get past the sometimes-daunting thought of waking up early, you realize there are more advantages than disadvantages when working out at this time.

• Fewer distractions – earlier workouts usually mean fewer people to interact with, so you don’t have to deal with crowds. Focusing on the task is easier, so you don’t get distracted!
• You put yourself in a good mood for the rest of the day – when you exercise, you release endorphins. Endorphins are chemicals your body releases while experiencing stress or pain, aiding in overall well-being.
• You give yourself more energy – once you get over the general grogginess that can come from starting to wake up earlier, your adrenaline starts flowing, causing you to become more alert and energized.
• You better your cardiovascular health – a study concluded that between 8 and 11 AM is the best time to work out to better your cardiovascular health. In this study, working out at 11 AM had the greatest positive effect on a person’s risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke compared to activity at different times. Overall, people who exercised at 11 AM were 16 percent less likely to develop cardiovascular disease and 17 percent less likely to have a first stroke of any kind.
• Cooler weather – if exercising outside, you can beat the heat by working out in the morning. Sometimes the temperature can jump 30 degrees in hotter areas in a matter of hours. Exercising outside in high temperatures can be dangerous, so a morning workout is considered safer.
• You improve your sleep cycle – research finds that morning workouts shift your circadian rhythm, so your body is naturally more alert in the morning and more tired in the evening.

Downsides to morning workouts

While morning workouts have many upsides, it’s important to note that they also have disadvantages. Weigh these options when considering the best time of day for your workout.

• It takes more time to get started – when you wake up, you’re low on energy, have a lower core body temperature, and have a slower heart rate. These factors mean you need to take more time to warm up to exercise safely.
• You might interrupt your sleep cycle – while morning workouts can improve your sleep, it depends on the person. You might throw off your sleep cycle, resulting in fatigue and sleep inertia or grogginess. You can calculate your sleep cycle to determine your best exercise times.

How to get the most out of a morning workout

If morning workouts are the best option for you, they can be optimized in a few ways. If you’re already struggling with exercising earlier, why not make the most of it?

• Eat a nutritious breakfast – since you have lower energy in the morning, make sure you eat before a workout. Try foods such as whole-grain cereals or bread, a banana, and yogurt. Look for foods that will fill you up but not weigh you down. The double-edged sword is that you need to wait after you’ve eaten before you exercise- it’s recommended that you wait one to two hours after you eat a meal to exercise or 30 to 60 minutes after you eat a snack.
• Keep a schedule – one of the best ways to make something a habit is to maintain a schedule around it. Wake up at the same time and exercise at the same time. Do this at whatever frequency you wish but keep to that schedule.
• Stretch – your body is just waking up, so don’t push it. Take at least five minutes to do basic stretches that warm up your body to prevent injury.

Although they may be harder to break into, morning workouts give you more bang for your buck. It’s essential, however, to choose which time of day is best for you. Weighing in factors like your diet and sleep cycle can help you decide on the right course of action.

Did you know that today women make up 77.6 percent of the total healthcare workforce in the US? This field may have a strong female presence now, but it wasn’t always this way. In honor of National Women’s Day, we want to introduce you to five women whose contributions changed the face of the medical field. Each of these women in healthcare and science broke down barriers to champion equality, education, and the advancement of women in the workforce during a time when it was extremely unpopular to do so. Here are five contributions women made in healthcare that hugely impacted our world.

Alice Evans‘ Contribution Led to Safer Milk

The discovery of the bacterium responsible for undulant fever led to the practice of pasteurizing milk in the 1930s. We owe this to microbiologist Alice Evans. With no doctorate or medical degree to her name, she made waves in her community when microbiology was in its early stages. Because of her discovery, she became the first female president of the Society of American Bacteriologists.

Florence Seibert’s Contribution led to the First Tuberculosis Test

Biochemist Florence Seibert was responsible for this ground-breaking advancement. Tuberculosis (also known as consumption) had killed one in seven people that lived by the 19^th century. This testing is still the standard today, and confirmed Tuberculosis is easily treated in almost all cases with a mix of antibiotics administered over six months. Even after retirement, she continued to research on a volunteer basis and was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame at age 90.

Dame Cicely Saunders’ Contribution was the Founding of Hospice

Although hospice-like care is believed to have been established in the 11^th century during the Crusades, the modern-day hospice system has only existed since the 1960s. In 1963, British physician Dame Cicely Saunders gave a talk at Yale University about her ideas of specialized care for the dying. She worked with terminally ill patients in London for several years but didn’t open the first hospice ‘St. Christopher’s’ until 1967. Inspired by Seibert’s Yale visit, Dr. Florence Wald, Dean of the Yale School of Nursing, opened the first US hospice in Branford, Connecticut, in 1974. As of 2023, the US has 1,805 hospices and palliative care centers in the US. The centers are vital to end-of-life care and are instrumental in making a challenging situation for patients and their families easier.

Gertrude Elion’s Contribution Led to the Possibility of Organ Transplants

At age 15, Gertrude Elion witnessed her grandfather die painfully from stomach cancer. It was then she set out to pursue her life’s mission of alleviating suffering from medical conditions. Her greatest discovery came when she developed azathioprine, also known as Imuran. This discovery makes organ transplants possible; a procedure performed 3,636 times in the US in the past year. Elion’s work also pioneered a new era of antiviral therapy that opened the doors to the first drug discovered to treat AIDS. An illness that has killed an estimated 1 million people worldwide since the start of its epidemic.

Marie Curie’s Contribution was the Discovery of Radium and Polonium and Their Use in Cancer Treatments

Marie Curie is arguably one of the most famous women in scientific history. Still, many don’t know the specifics of her story. She and her husband, Pierre Curie, discovered radium and polonium and coined the term “radioactive.” Because of this work, she became the first woman to receive a doctorate degree in France. She and her husband provided radium for the first treatment known as “brachytherapy” in 1901. Shortly after, the famous Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center started the groundbreaking therapy in 1903. During World War I, she hid her radium research to create, with her daughter, hundreds of standing x-ray facilities in France to assist wounded soldiers on the frontlines. To this day, Curie is the only woman to have received two Nobel Prizes. Her contributions to cancer treatment are still used today, helping the estimated 1.9 million people diagnosed with cancer in the US in 2022 alone.

We are honored to celebrate these women in healthcare and science, their contributions, and the doors they opened for future generations. To learn about more women in healthcare that have helped pave the way, read our previous blog celebrating International Women’s Day!

With the new year already underway, are you thinking about your health? A Statista survey revealed that people are more likely to be health conscious around this time of the year, with “living healthier” being the number one resolution from 2022. If you plan to prioritize your health in 2023, consider involving your primary care physician. Getting a physical is a great way to help kick-start the new year. Annual physicals are also a vital part of preventative care and keeping tabs on your health, as many illnesses can go unnoticed. According to the CDC, six in ten adults in the US have a chronic disease, which are the leading causes of death and disability in the nation. During a physical, your doctor can run a few tests to rule out chronic illnesses or diseases that could cost you a lot of time and money if left untreated.

Top five questions to ask your doctor at a yearly check-up

Now that you’re planning an annual physical, will you ask the right questions? Your primary care physician will do most of the heavy lifting, but it’s essential that you also take charge in asking about your health. We talked with Healthcare2U’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. John Rodriguez, about the top five questions you should ask your doctor at your yearly check-up, here are his recommendations:

1. Am I up to date on adult immunizations?
2. What are my vital signs, and are they normal?
3. Are my prescriptions still relevant?
4. Is there anything I could do to better my health?
5. Do I have any family medical history that puts me at risk for illnesses?

Bear in mind- these are just general questions that everyone should be asking. If you have preexisting conditions or are currently dealing with a medical issue during your check-up, you’ll want to ask specific questions related to your current health. However, the last thing you should do is self-diagnose; let a doctor handle your diagnosis.

How Healthcare2U’s DPC membership is a vital part of preventative care 

If you want an annual physical, you’ll probably need to use insurance. With varying insurance costs and steep out of pocket co-pays, it’s easy to see why so many people can’t access these yearly check-ups, as it can be difficult to afford such a high monthly payment. However, if you’re a member of Healthcare2U, there is an alternative option to primary care access that helps you receive the care you need.

Healthcare2U’s DPC membership focuses on prevention and caters to each member, so you have an ally in managing your health.

Healthcare2U’s Direct Primary Care (DPC) membership caters to you through affordable and easy-to-access primary medical care. Healthcare2U provides unlimited in-office primary and urgent care visits, 24/7/365 bilingual Virtual DPC, and chronic disease management for 13 disease states. Membership also includes an annual physical with four labs: (1) complete metabolic panel (CMP), (2) complete blood count (CBC), (3) thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), and (4) lipid panel. By getting these annual tests, you’ll know more about your health and be able to make a plan with your doctor if you need further care.

Keep in mind, should these tests detect the beginning stages of a chronic disease* you’ll receive unlimited doctor visits for treating and managing that illness for just $10 per visit. Combined with our bilingual Patient Advocacy Line (PAL) and Virtual DPC, every member receives the guidance and care they need when they need it. Healthcare2U’s DPC membership focuses on prevention and caters to each member, so you have an ally in managing your health.

For more information on how the DPCplus membership can play a vital role in your preventative care, contact us or read more about our membership.

*Healthcare2U’s membership includes the detection, treatment and management of 13 chronic disease states within manageable ranges. Contact us to learn more.