'These are the four things I wish I had known before cancer diagnosis changed my life'
A man diagnosed with stage three bowel cancer after six warning signs revealed what he wished he had known before his world changed in an instant.
Jon Imondi, 43, survived after life-saving surgery to remove his tumour - and two years on, he has shared some wisdom for others.
Speaking to Gloucestershire Live, he said he would have a different attitude while also taking his diet, fitness, and mental health more seriously if he could rewind the clock.
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He explained: “I just wish that I didn’t have the ‘it will never happen to me’ attitude. Cancer affects one in two and we need to start looking after ourselves more and what we consume and our lifestyle to make sure we’re not just another statistic.”
Jon, who is from Worcester, continued: “One thing I’ve learned in my research and reading is that the modern lifestyle is a breeding ground for cancer. So for people who don’t have cancer, get up and walk every day, move around, and eat lots of fresh fruit and vegetables.”
He clarified that he was not preaching to people to have a vegan diet, but that adding more vegetables, fruit, nuts, beans, legumes and pulses to your daily diet could have a significant impact.
And as for the mind, he concluded: “Get some therapy. All of us carrying developmental trauma need some help somewhere and I believe that we hold on to a lot of stress and depression. We have a lot of emotions to suppress which suppresses our immune system and exposes us to these nasty diseases.”
Jon was diagnosed in December 2022 after a failed colonoscopy where the camera was blocked from getting past a tumour that was present.
His timing was “lucky” and doctors feared it could have been a stage-four diagnosis because the tumour may have been close to breaking free from his colon and spreading to his liver.
But he had keyhole surgery where his tumour and part of his colon were removed and the IT engineer, who is a therapist in training, now talks about his cancer journey on his YouTube channel.
And in one of his TikTok videos, he also shared life advice from a cancer survivor, advising people to cut out junk food and alcohol in exchange for fresh food you know is good for you.
He concluded: “Hear your soul. If you are struggling with your mental health, get some help, seek out therapy, just don’t wait until it's too late because once you get that diagnosis… wow.”
The UK is experiencing the fastest rise in under-50s developing bowel cancer in Europe, a study published in The Lancet Oncology recently revealed.
And one expert who agrees with Jon about diet being a possible factor is Professor Tim Spector who spoke about the worrying rise on the Great Company podcast.
Giving a theory about why more young people are getting bowel cancer, he said: "Or it could be again, due to our poor diets effecting our gut microbes, because there are increasing correlations between certain gut microbes and cancer that if you have a certain microbe in you, you have a like a tenfold increase of getting colon cancer in the next five years."
The professor, who is the brains behind Zoe Health, added: "We are exploring all this stuff but I think the microbiome has got to be the main driver of this and I think poor diets is the most likely thing that has changed in young people."