These foods may be fueling colorectal cancer in young women

You are what you eat — and it could come back to haunt you.

Colorectal cancer had long been considered a disease that primarily affects older adults, but cases in people under 55 have been steadily increasing since the ’90s.

New research suggests that certain foods may be fueling this alarming rise in young women — and men should take note, too.

“This is a message for the entire population,” Dr. Christine Molmenti , an associate professor and cancer epidemiologist at Northwell Health, told The Post.

“Everything that we eat touches our colon; good or bad,” added Molmenti, who wasn’t involved in the new study.

For the research, Harvard scientists analyzed data from 29,105 cancer-free nurses between 1991 and 2015.

Over the 24-year follow-up period, researchers identified 1,189 pa