Opening up about his journey, the beloved actor highlights the importance of screening starting from age 45.
If you were an OG Dawson’s fan, it’s time to think about your first colon cancer screening. We’re serious, and so is James Van Der Beek, who today shared publicly about his 2023 colorectal cancer diagnosis. “Colorectal cancer is the second-deadliest cancer out there,” he told The Healthy by Reader’s Digest moments after an appearance on TODAY. “I didn’t realize [the recommended screening age] had changed from 50,” or even younger for individuals with a family history or other risk factors. “I was doing the saunas and the cold plunges and all the biohacking things, and eating as organic as I could,” Van Der Beek, 48, told us—meanwhile, “I had full blown stage III and didn’t know it.”
In November 2024, the actor, husband, and father of six revealed that he’d been diagnosed with the illness a year prior. Here, in partnership with Guardant Health, Van Der Beek encourages eligible Americans to get screened, regardless of whether symptoms exist, and learn about options like the simple Shield blood test, which was FDA approved in 2024. “This is a simple blood draw that could be done at your next doctor’s appointment,” Van Der Beek explained. “The colonoscopy is still the gold standard for screening, but for anybody who has a barrier around that, whether it’s time or what have you, this is a convenient, pleasant, easy way to get screened.” (As another alternative, Cologuard and some health systems around the country also offer at-home stool kits to patients after the 45th birthday.)
Van Der Beek offered a reminder that colorectal cancer is one of the most curable types of cancer when it’s caught early and treated properly. “That’s why I’m teaming up the Shield, to get the word out that early detection increases your survival rate by a lot,” he said. “TheBloodTest.com—easy.”
Ahead, Van Der Beek speaks intimately about his treatment journey, and what he hopes audiences will take away from his experience.
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The Healthy by Reader’s Digest: James, we are wishing you the best and so grateful you’re sharing your story. First and foremost, how are you doing? And physically, how are you feeling?
James Van Der Beek: I’m feeling great, especially today. I’m very happy to get the word out. So this all feels really good.
The Healthy: Can you share with our audience, so they can be aware for themselves: What led to your colorectal cancer diagnosis? Did you experience symptoms, or was this through screening?
James Van Der Beek: I had a couple symptoms, but what I really want to stress is that you don’t need symptoms to get screened—and the age at which it is recommended that you get screened, [which] is 45. I didn’t realize that had changed from 50, and it can be even younger if you have a family history or other complications. So I did have some symptoms, but really you can’t go by that. Go by the recommended screening guidelines.
I want to put that on everybody’s radar even if they don’t have symptoms, because I was incredibly healthy. I was in amazing shape, great cardiovascular shape. I was doing the saunas and the cold plunges and all the biohacking things, and eating as organic as I could. I had full-blown stage III and didn’t know it.
The Healthy: On TODAY, you called cancer “a full-time job.” Those of us with a loved one who’s had cancer will relate to that so much. Don’t you wish you could pause everything else that we need to manage in life, just to focus on treatment and recovery?
James Van Der Beek: Man, wouldn’t it be great? And just one medical portal to rule them all—those two things: a “life pause” button so you can just devote full-time attention to it, and one portal that had all your records and everything that every doctor needed so you didn’t have to sign up 40 million times. Yeah.
The Healthy: Has this experience changed your choices at all? Any new perspective you’d share?
James Van Der Beek: Oh, for sure. It’s definitely deepened my awareness of self-love, and how transactional a relationship I’d had with my own self-love. Once I was taken to a point of not being able to do all the things that I prided myself in doing—being husband, father, provider—when I was just a guy with cancer, that’s when I realized how important it’s to love yourself just for existing.
The Healthy: That is profound. We ask this in all our interviews: What’s one self-care habit you refuse to skip?
James Van Der Beek: I’m not in the habit of skipping too many self-care habits at this point. I think journaling. Journaling and writing down, just free-writing, where I’m at. Not for anybody other than just my own process. I do it freehand because when I type, I find the thoughts can just go straight through my fingers and bypass my body. When I write, what I’m saying actually has the chance to kind of ruminate and sit my body for just a beat, and it makes a difference.
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