 Hello, I am Dr. Kakoli Lhakar, Consul general medical oncologist in Manipal Hospital, Bangalore. The best way to prevent colon cancer is to undergo routine screening. The screening recommendations for an average risk individual that is an individual over 50 years of age who does not have any family history of colon cancer who does not have any history of inflammatory bowel disease or undergoing a colorectal surgery because of her edinoma needs to undergo a colonoscopy every 10 years. Or the other alternative is an annual stool testing for occult blood combined with a sigmoidoscopy every 5 years. This is the usual screening recommendation for all men and women above 50 who do not have any high risk factor. A patient who has a first degree relative or more than one first degree relative with the history of colon cancer need to undergo screening starting at 40 years of age or 10 years earlier before the last case in the family. Which means if he has a father who had colon cancer at 50 years he needs to start undergoing screening at 40. If he has a relative who had colon cancer at 40 then he might have to undergo screening starting at 30 years of age. So these are the routine screening recommendations for colorectal cancer. By screening we can detect colorectal cancer at a very early stage or at a pre-cancerase or pre-malignant state when it can be treated and colon cancer can be prevented. Besides this, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, reducing consumption of alcohol, reducing consumption of red meat, undergoing regular exercise, maintaining a healthy body weight, treating diabetes mellitus adequately and quitting smoking can also prevent colorectal cancer.