But that trend stalled and reversed in recent years among people under 55, with rates growing 2% per year since 2012. In general, colorectal cancer rates have declined steadily for decades. “Chadwick’s death highlighted two little-known aspects of this disease: that colon cancer afflicts the young too, and that Blacks are disproportionally affected both in terms of getting it and dying from it,” says Aasma Shaukat, MD, a professor in the Division of Gastroenterology at the University of Minnesota.
2, 2021 - Headlines of Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman’s death last year shocked the world when it was revealed the actor had died after a secret 4-year battle with colon cancer.Īt just 43, the Black actor seemed impossibly young to succumb to a cancer so preventable that some describe it as “the disease no one has to die from.” But as fans publicly questioned how such a thing could happen, doctors quietly acknowledged a stark reality: It happens a lot.
