Around 1 million people in the UK have a serious bowel disease.
“Serious” means a disease likely to lead to, or accompanied by, at least one of the following: death; intense pain and suffering over a number of years; prolonged and very unpleasant disruption of the routines of life such that normal daily life becomes impossible.
There are three serious bowel diseases or groups of diseases: bowel cancer, inflammatory bowel disease and bowel incontinence
1 in 20 people will develop bowel cancer – it’s the fourth most common cancer in the UK and the second most common form of cancer death.
Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis are the two main forms of inflammatory bowel disease and affect more than 300,000 people in the UK.