'These are people in the prime of life': The worrying puzzle behind the rise in early-onset cancer

girlfreddy@lemmy.ca to World News@lemmy.world – 274 points – 'These are people in the prime of life': The worrying puzzle behind the rise in early-onset cancer
bbc.com

Over the past 10 years, rates of colorectal cancer among 25 to 49 year olds have increased in 24 different countries, including the UK, US, France, Australia, Canada, Norway and Argentina.

The investigation's early findings, presented by an international team at the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) congress in Geneva in September 2024, were as eye-catching as they are concerning.

The researchers, from the American Cancer Society (ACS) and the World Health Organization's (WHO's) International Agency for Research on Cancer, surveyed data from 50 countries to understand the trend. In 14 of these countries, the rising trend was only seen in younger adults, with older adult rates remaining stable.

Based on epidemiological investigations, it seems that this trend first began in the 1990s. One study found that the global incidence of early-onset cancer had increased by 79% between 1990 and 2019, with the number of cancer-related deaths in younger people rising by 29%. Another report in The Lancet Public Health described how cancer incidence rates in the US have steadily risen between the generations across 17 different cancers, particularly in Generation Xers and Millennials.

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We’ve poisoned our planet for the last 100+ years and now we are dying off slowly from the fruits of our labor.

The irony.

if that were the case, you'd expect more cancer in older people as well, not just young people.

edit:

Cancer deaths are consistently declining in the US. American Cancer Society's 2023 report

Despite the pandemic, and in contrast with other leading causes of death, the cancer death rate continued to decline from 2019 to 2020 (by 1.5%), contributing to a 33% overall reduction since 1991 and an estimated 3.8 million deaths averted.

that could also be because less people are being tested as a result of medical burnout, faculty reductions, or other more lethal illnesses taking it's place.

just because it's declining generally doesn't mean it's actually going away.

more likely the opposite, we see higher “incidents” because of improved detection and reporting. meanwhile deaths decline because of improved treatments and prevention.