James van der Beek has been invested in the optimization of his health for years.
“I did everything,” Van der Beek, 48, told Business Insider. “I made sauna, cold jump, weightlifting, Pilates. I would dance and also do football training.”
The actor “Dawson's Creek” salanced strength training with Cardio and mainly organic food, “and made all biohacking things” to stay fit, he said.
Then he started to experience Changes in his stoolA frequent symptom for colon cancer. He stopped drinking coffee to see if the problem would solve itself.
“It didn't feel like a real symptom for anything,” he said. “It was nothing that made me hurry to become.”
Van der Beek held an active lifestyle that led to his diagnosis. Guardant Health
When it existed, he got colonoscopy. At 46, he was diagnosed with colon cancer in stage 3. He waited for treatment for over a year before he publicly shared the news in late 2024.
With his diagnosis, van der Beek joined an alarming number of young people in which advanced cancer was diagnosed. Many like him had subtle symptoms and a healthy lifestyle.
While he wished he had shown earlier, he said that his options were more limited even in 2023. It was not until 2024 that the tortoise test, a test that can recognize colon cancer signs from a simple blood formation, was approved by the FDA.
Van der Beek, who said that he would probably have to do with cancer for the rest of his life, now promotes the test to encourage people earlier, especially since colon cancer cases increase in patients under 50 years. He also hopes to raise awareness of symptoms and demand people as soon as they are 45 years old, the recommended screening age.
“That could”, if you have a train, is a black hole, “said van der Beek. “But don't let my 'could become Haves' to you. This is my biggest message.”
A shocking start of a new life
In 2020, Van der Beek and his family moved from Los Angeles to Austin. He took a break from acting for a few years and was always busy raising six children with his wife Kimberly.
It took time to settle down. While Van der Beek qualified for annual colon cancer screening with 45, he said that he had not received a colonoscopy at that time because he was still exhibiting his new health situation. He also did not know that the screening guidelines had changed in 2021, which reduced the recommended age from 50 to 45.
Van der Beek was a shock in which he had diagnosed himself in late stage in 2023, and one that he processed two years later. “It really took a while until it used,” he said. “Reality is still in steps; there are so many strangers.”
“All these beautiful things I love, and I defined myself as – a father, a provider, a husband – everything that was taken away or at least done during the break.”
Cancer in stage 3, in which cancer cells have spread to the lymph nodes But no other organs typically need chemotherapy and operation to treat them.
Balancing paternity and working with the treatment
Van der Beek said that his “lowest point” in treatment had the feeling of losing the core parts of his identity.
“All these beautiful things I love, and I defined myself as – a father, a provider, a husband – everything that was taken away or at least taken during the break,” he said. “I had to sit there and say: 'Well, what am I?' And it was: 'I am still worthy of love.' “
Van der Beek said that he not only had to do with the treatment himself, but also “the full-time employment of medical portals and appointments and medication, additions, test attempt to organize all of this”.
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The actor said that it was difficult for him to ask for help even though he really needed it.
“I don't know how someone does it alone,” he said. “It was astonishing to see how my friends get through in a way that I have never allowed them.”
Van der Beek about “The Masked Singer” with his family in 2024. FOX/FOX image collection via Getty Images
A month after he has announced his public Colon cancer Van der Beek appeared in “The Real Full Monty”, a television special in which he and five other male celebrities were robbed in “The Real Full Monty” to raise awareness of cancer. He said that turning the special for the first time that he shared the news with every outside of his inner circle.
“It was so life -affirming to see the immediate support and empathy and only the energy I came back from it,” he said. “I think if you exceed that uncomfortably and you come to the other side of fear, there is always a kind of reward.”
While he used to have a “very difficult relationship” to fame, he now looks at it very differently.
“Actually, it was a real blessing, because now I get people to say that they pray everywhere for me, and I really have the feeling that it helps and I need it and I am grateful for it,” he said. “It connects me to so many people with whom I would never contact.”
He wants
Cases of colon cancer increase worldwide, especially in people around or under the recommended screening age that the United States has dropped to achieve the growing rate in younger patients.
Van der Beek not only wants to raise the general awareness of this or which symptoms have to be replaced or which symptoms he have to look for, but also for alternative screening options.
While colonoscopies are viewed as a gold standard during the exam because doctors can remove precancer polyps, they can be expensive, time -consuming and uncomfortable that include laxative and anesthesia.
“I didn't find coloscopy so pleasant,” said van der Beek. “It can be a challenge for people who are in a job in which they cannot take this kind of work.”
There are increasingly less invasive tests at home that can provide answers. For example, Kologuard and Fit -widespread at home are used tests that demonstrate the presence of cancer in stool samples.
The Shield test is a blood test in people with average risk that is from 45 years. If the result is positive, colonoscopy is the next step. Shield research It found that the intestinal cancer screening rate more than doubled in the patient's blood duration offered.
Van der Beek promotes the shield blood examination of guardian health to detect colon cancer. Guardant Health
Colon cancer is caught in the earlier stages and is very treatable. Therefore, van der Beek hopes that more people will be shown, but they choose to do it.
He still remembers one of his first reactions when he was diagnosed. He wondered what his situation could be.
“What is what I will look back on in 20 years and say: 'Thank God, that happened?” he said. “So what can I do to do that to the case?”
So far, sensitization has aroused him a lot of purpose during his ongoing treatment. “I learned a lot. If I can keep someone from going through it, it is magic,” he said.