Hi, there.
Eric Bakker.
Thanks for tuning in.
I get many questions from our subscribers, as you can well imagine.
Some questions I can respond to, and some I can't.
Some questions I get all the time, and some I get every now and then.
Here's a question I do receive regularly from people, and this is a question from a lady
over in Spain, which is an interesting one.
"Eric, I have blood in the stool."
Occult blood.
"What does it mean?
What are the causes?
What do I do?"
She's really stuck here with this problem, and she also mentions in the comment to me
that her mother had bowel cancer, and she's quite worried about that.
She's wondering if she could have bowel cancer.
Let's talk about occult blood and really what that means, and whether you should be freaking
out or not.
So, many people at some stage in their life will pass some blood through the stool.
For most people, this will be quite ... it won't really mean much.
It will only be a small amount.
It can be the result of a hemorrhoid, it can be the result of some type of intestinal parasite
or infection.
It can happen from time to time.
This can be anomalies that can occur with people.
However, if you're passing out blood regularly, you know?
If you notice it when you're going to the bathroom, and it's regularly coming out in
the stool, it definitely warrants investigation.
Further by the doctor.
Particularly blood tests.
And especially if you've got fatigue, you're tired, you got poor immune function, you've
got any rectal itching, you've got really, really fatigued, you've got brain fog, stuff
like that.
It will require, definitely, some more in-depth investigations to determine what is going
on.
It could be one of 100 different things going on.
It could be something as simple as a hemorrhoid, which is very, very common in so many people.
But it could also be something more sinister, like a stricture or a problem with the colon.
There could be polyps inside there.
There could even be bowel cancer, for all you know.
So these things are well-worth checking out.
Colon cancer is bowel cancer is much more common than you think.
Many people have bowel cancer, in fact, where it's never diagnosed.
I highly recommend, for this reason, that you stay on a very, very good diet and always
strive to eat very good, healthy foods to help prevent conditions like bowel cancer,
which is linked with things like heavy alcohol use.
Eating too much red meat.
Obesity.
High stress.
Things like that can contribute to this terrible disease.
The blood in the stool question is an interesting one.
And you can go to your doctor and often get a stool test done for what I call occult blood,
so, occult, we're not talking about devil worshiping and stuff like this.
We're talking about occult blood, so blood that is found in a place where it shouldn't
really be found.
Blood should not be found in the toilet bowel.
It shouldn't be there.
So a fecal test, the doctor ... there are various tests that they can do; they can also
do this particular marker, for example, to determine whether you've got bowel cancer
or not.
There's a particular type of stool test that can be done as well, through a lab.
So if you're concerned, you can actually ask for the stool test to determine whether you've
got a bowel cancer risk or not.
It's a particular enzyme called MPK2 kinase or something.
I can't remember exactly what it is, but it's a particular marker to determine whether you've
got colon cancer or not.
So that could also be done, if you want to, at the same time, or at a later date, determine
that.
But often, if you get repeated occult bloods coming back, further investigation, you may
need to go to the gastrointestinal doctor for a proper examination and check out there
to make sure.
The other thing I like, I recommend, if you've got a fecal occult that's positive is to get
a complete blood count down.
And particularly ask for iron studies to determine what's happening with your red blood cells.
You could have a low ferritin.
F-E-R-R-I-T-I-N, ferritin.
Which is an iron storage protein, so if you've got low ferritin, you could have been bleeding,
losing blood for a long period of time, particularly if you're weak and tired.
Get B12 and folate also checked.
Very important elements, you know, that go along with the red blood cell cascade there,
so get IBCs and red blood cell screen done and maybe B12 and folate and then find out
what's going on.
So I hope that gives you a bit of useful information there on occult blood.
If you're in doubt, go to the doctor.
Get a blood test done and take it from there to see what happens.
So I hope that gives you good information.
Thanks for the question.
Thank you.