Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

Encouraging people to get colorectal cancer screenings can be difficult, even though early detection can often lead to a cure. “It is one of the most feared of all illnesses and people … don’t want to know about it if they don’t have to,” Dr. Taina Taskila of the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom told Reuters Health. Dr. Taskila and a team of researchers from the university conducted a study to find out who is most likely to opt out of colorectal screenings and what can be done to change attitudes about the potentially life-saving procedure.

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Internet commercials for colon cleansing products featuring the images, names and voices of Oprah Winfrey and her friend Dr. Oz are a hoax, says Winfrey and Oz, and they have filed a lawsuit in New York Federal Court to take the ads down, according to TMZ. The lawsuit claims the company is trying to cash in on the false premise that the products have been tested or recommended by Winfrey and/or Oz when they, in fact, have not. Winfrey and Oz claim the company, which sells products such as Colon Pro Cleanse, Power Colon Cleanse and Colon Max, “turn out to be credit card scams or other fraudulent schemes.”

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Colonoscopies are serious business. The procedure involves sending a small camera inside the colon to search for abnormalities, including colon or rectal cancers, also known as colorectal cancer. Regular colon screenings can find polyps even before they become cancerous. By removing those polyps, one can literally dodge colorectal cancer.

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Patients who schedule their colonoscopy for the morning are more likely to have their potentially cancer-causing polyps detected than those who set up afternoon appointments for colonoscopies, according to a Cleveland (Ohio) Clinic study.

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Health Canada has ordered manufacturers of over-the-counter oral sodium phosphates (OSP), such as Fleet Phospho-Soda, to either re-label the products to remove any mention of bowel cleansing, or remove the products completely from the Canadian market.

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Colorectal cancer, or cancers of the colon or rectum, is the third most common cancer diagnosed in both men and women and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States among men and women combined, according to the American Cancer Society. The average person has about a 1 in 19 risk of developing the disease over his lifetime. Detected early, the disease can be curable. The best defense is regular screenings. Regular colonoscopies are recommended beginning at age 50, or sooner for those with a family history or exhibiting symptoms.

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