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The best defense: a screening colonoscopy.

The ACS recommends that persons of average risk have colon cancer screening beginning at age 50.

A colonoscopy is an exam that allows a doctor to inspect the inside of the entire colon for signs of cancer or polyps.

Physicians at the Pinehurst Medical Clinic Endoscopy Center perform colonoscopies.

During the exam, they use a slender, flexible tube with a light and tiny camera that transmits the image to a television monitor.

This helps the physician locate any sign of cancer or polyps as he/she scopes.

When a polyp is found, it is usually removed right then by a painless snare and sent to pathology.

“With a colonoscopy, we are preventing cancer whereas most every other screening we have, can only pick up the early signs,” says Dr.

Thomas Swantkowski, senior gastroenterologist at Pinehurst Medical Clinic (PMC).

“Chest X-rays show us signs of The theory is, if you get it early it can be treatable.

But only the colonoscopy allows us to remove the potential cancerous growth at the moment of detection.” Colon cancer almost always starts with a polyp, a small growth on the lining of the colon.

Removing the polyp means it cannot develop into cancer.

Swantkowski says other screening tests like stool home tests and sigmoidoscopy ar...

"She was buying Christmas presents for her son that day, and really had a tremendous amount of energy.

She seemed wonderful, and very, very grounded and strong." In her introduction to the first segment of The New Medicine, Reeve tells viewers: "Your emotional state has a tremendous amount to do with sickness, health and well-being.

For years, my husband and I lived on - and because of -hope.

Hope continues to give me the mental strength to carry on." The project was the last she is known to have completed before her March 6 death, and it was a fitting one: The New Medicine, which debuts tonight at 9, looks at how mainstream doctors are embracing treatment of the whole patient - not just symptoms of a disease.

-ADVERTISEMENT- Reeve's appearance underscores one of the points of the documentary: Holistic medicine is a tool for fighting illness - not a cure-all.

"Part of the challenge is we get patients all the time that are really looking for a magic cure," said Dr.

Tracy Gaudet, an obstetrician-gynecologist who heads the Duke Center for Integrative Medicine in Durham, N.C.

"We're not in the business of magic cures; we're in the business of good medicine." The Duke center uses any available technique that might improve a patient's experience and outcome.

Accepted practices include herbal supplements, acupuncture, massage ...