Researchers have identified another gene that spikes your risk of getting cancer.

They say an alarming number of people could be carrying it.

Until now, it's been people like Susan Valentine Cooper who have been the most interested in getting genetic testing. She discovered colon cancer has run through her family for generations.

"Cousins and uncles, my mother and great uncles, just all the way down the line," she said.

Testing can uncover genetic variations that make people more susceptible, and now Chicago researchers have pinpointed a gene linked to cancer they think many of us carry.

A study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology identifies a common gene that could increase your risk of many types of cancer by 26 percent.

MORE INFORMATION Journal of Clinical Oncology

The risk goes even higher for breast cancer, ovarian cancer and colon cancer, and researchers suspect the gene is present in nearly one out of eight people.

Local cancer researcher Martin McIntosh says people should put the new information in perspective.

"Out of ten thousand people age 60, about 100 will get cancer in that given year. [For] people with this mutation, it will be 150," said Dr. McIntosh, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

At the University of Washington Medical Genetics Clinic, counselors tell callers the best motivation for genetic testing is if you can take action to protect against your increased cancer risk.

"Right now, we already offer colon cancer screening at age 50. Is there something that we should be offering you differently? So, colon cancer screening at age 25 or breast cancer screening at age 20 versus waiting until you're 40 years of age," said Robin Bennett of the UW Medical Genetics Clinic.

Testing for the new cancer gene isn't available to patients yet. Researchers say they still have to figure out how it relates to other genes linked to cancer.