Why More Young Folks Are Getting Most cancers | Industry Insider Explains | Insider News

Mia: What is really alarming oncologists is this sharp rise in cancerincidence among young people. I was 35 when I was diagnosed kind of in early 2023. I was diagnosed with Stage 3rectal cancer at that point. I was laying in bed andlike, typing the symptoms that I had, and at the bottomit would always be stomach or colorectal cancer, and Iwas like, “That can't be me.” That's what my grandparentshave to worry about.

Mia: When you look at therisk of being diagnosed with cancer at a young age, sobetween the age of 15 to 39, that risk has increased40% from 1975 to now. It's mysterious, it's concerning, and it's something thatthe whole cancer community is trying to work out right now. Everyone's recognizingthis is really serious. I'm Mia de Graaf, and I'm a health editorat Business Insider.

Rates of cancer among young people are rising sharply worldwide, but particularly in certain countries that conform to what we wouldcall a Western lifestyle. So that's places like the US,Canada, the UK, Australia, certain parts of Europe. These are all places that eatmore ultra-processed food. Things that are easy,cheap, and fast to get, places where people areoften driving everywhere.

Or have poorer sleep schedules. So there are 14 cancers broadly that are increasing reallyrapidly among young people: breast cancer, colorectalcancer, endometrial cancer, esophagus, bile duct, gallbladder,head and neck, kidney, liver, bone marrow,pancreas, prostate, stomach, and thyroid. Those are all ones which are increasing in people under the age of 50.

The oncologists that I've spoken to who treat younger patients, the vast majority of patients they see actually seem like a picture of health when they come in. They might be marathon runners or leading incredibly healthy active lives but still have this cancerdiagnosis that comes up. I've also spoken to alot of young patients.

About how mind-boggling it isto get this kind of diagnosis at such a young age. I was an adamant CrossFit enthusiast, and I had spent a lot of my 30s kind of refocusing my diet on trying to be what we all kind ofexpect to be healthier. That, coupled with my youngage when I got a diagnosis, that is something you'renot supposed to worry about for decades. It was incredibly shocking.

When you are a young age, you are in this kindof sandwich generation. You might be caringfor your older parents, you might be startingto have a young family, you might be trying to saveup money to buy a house. At that time, getting a cancer diagnosis can be extremely destabilizing. I was diagnosed in September of 2015. I got a colonoscopy, and withina week, I was in surgery,.

And they took 80% of my colon out and started on this crazy long journey of colon cancer at 27. A person born in 1990 has quadruple the risk of being diagnosedwith colorectal cancer compared to a person born in 1950. By 2030, colorectal cancer isgoing to surpass breast cancer as the leading cause of cancerdeath among young people. The unfortunate thing aboutcolorectal cancer in general.

Is it really focuses on a part of our body that we as society have been conditioned to think of as embarrassing or things we don't want to talk about. People even in my town still don't associate coloncancer with young people. That's a huge, like, kind ofstigma I'm trying to break. The thing with colorectal cancer is that a lot of peoplewere coming in with Stage 3,.

Stage 4, very advanced, and the tumors alsolooked more aggressive. This is something obviouslywhich was a huge conversation when Chadwick Boseman died. He died of colorectal cancer,and it was Stage 3 or 4 by the time it was discovered. And that's somethingthat we are really seeing in young people. In terms of what's causingthe increased cancer rates.

Among young people, there's many different factors that researchers are looking at. Screening has increased, and it has helped us todetect more cancers for sure. But that sharp rise that weare seeing in young cancers, it just cannot be accountedfor alone by screening. If this was accounted for by screening, we would actually be seeinga lot of early-stage cancers,.

And that's not really what'sbeing borne out in the data. We're seeing a surprisingincrease in young people with later-stage cancers, too. One of the main factorswe're looking at is diet, because eight of the 14 cancers which are increasing among young people are related to the digestive tract. And our diet has changed alot in the last few decades, and we know that the diets thatwe largely eat now in the US.

And in other high-incomecountries is not very good for us. So that's more red meat, moresugar intake, more alcohol, low intake of water, foodthat is high in calorie, low in fiber. It can increase your risk of diabetes. That can affect how you control insulin. These are all things thatare linked to cancer. So then you have inactivity. So if you're living amore sedentary lifestyle,.

Perhaps you're not moving around as much, you're not burning as many calories. You don't have that regular movement which offsets inflammation in the body. Poor sleep is a really big factor, which, if you speak to any oncologist, they will talk to youabout sleep schedule. Very often, people will be upsort of late into the night, and then they'll wake upvery early to go to work,.

Or you get a lot ofnight-shift workers now, which you didn't have in pre-1950. One of the factors whichis part of the conversation when we're talking about youngcancers is our environment. So obviously there aremicroplastics, toxins, pollution. We do suspect that they're playing a role. They're much harder to measure. So children today seem tobe exposed to chemicals that they probably wouldn'thave been exposed to.

In the 1950s, and that's why we're trying to parse out, is there a shift in terms ofwhat children are exposed to in the environment now? One of the rogue factors thatpeople are speaking about is increased height. So generally, humans are getting bigger. We are all much taller these days. There does seem to be a correlation.

With increased height isincreased cancer risk marginally, but it is there, and one of the theories is that simply havingmore cells in your body increases the risk for more cell division, which could increase therisk for cancer to grow. The way you're born is a really interestingpotential risk factor here for cancer. So if you're born byC-section, you do technically,.

According to a few studies, have an increased risk of cancer. There was a study done in Sweden recently that caused a big splash, whichwas that women who were born by a C-section had an increased risk of colorectal cancer intheir young adulthood. And we have seen otherstudies that being born via c-section increases achild's risk of leukemia. When you have a vaginal birth,.

The baby is coated with microbes, and that seems tofortify their microbiome. We've seen this sharpincrease from 1990 to now. We don't know exactly whatthat looks like from now on. Can we reverse this trend? Is it going in a linear fashion? In terms of turning this trend around, the most important thingis research, obviously. We need to better understandwhat the causes are,.

And until we better understand the causes, we can't make a societaleffort to turn this trend. A lot of attention is paid to what we could be doing as individuals. So you'll hear everyone talk about diet and how you should bewalking more, socializing, being part of a community,sleeping better, drink less alcohol, don'tsmoke, don't do drugs, and then of course, doscreenings and see a doctor.

But really, if we wantto see a societal change and to turn this trend around, it is an infrastructure question. So can we make cities more walkable, or can we make it easier foryou to access fresh foods? There are some positives. The rate of cancer mortality is way down. We've made so much progressin terms of treatment. There are certain vaccineslike the HPV vaccine.

That has dramatically reduced mortality from head and neck cancers, for example. And then we're alsopreventing a lot of cancers that are to do with alcoholconsumption and smoking. Of course it's alarming, but the whole cancer communityis rallying around this and is starting to pourinvestment and attention into this area to try andwork out what's going on. And I think that momentum isa real cause for optimism.

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