Cancer Is Striking More Young People, and Doctors Are Alarmed and Baffled [View all]
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Cancer is hitting more young people in the U.S. and around the globe, baffling doctors. Diagnosis rates in the U.S. rose in 2019 to 107.8 cases per 100,000 people under 50, up 12.8% from 95.6 in 2000, federal data show. A study in BMJ Oncology last year reported a sharp global rise in cancers in people under 50, with the highest rates in North America, Australia and Western Europe. Doctors are racing to figure out what is making them sick, and how to identify young people who are at high risk. They suspect that changes in the way we live—less physical activity, more ultra-processed foods, new toxins—have raised the risk for younger generations.
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The U.S. cancer death rate has dropped by one-third since 1991, thanks to a plunge in smoking and better treatment. Screening to catch cancers earlier, including breast cancer, has helped, too. Although cancer still strikes older people far more often than the young, the rise in early-onset cancers threatens to stall progress. One in five new colorectal cancer patients in 2019 was under 55, a near doubling since 1995. These younger patients are often diagnosed at late stages. Colorectal cancer death rates among patients over 65 are going down, but for those under 50 they are going up.
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Not all cancers are on the rise among young people. Breast cancer, the most common cancer diagnosis in the U.S. for people under 50, is rising some, and gastrointestinal cancers like Keen’s are increasing the fastest, studies suggest. Hoping to capture more cases sooner, medical groups have lowered to 40 the recommended age for breast-cancer screening to begin, and for colorectal cancer, to 45. Some people who get diagnosed at an advanced stage are still too young for such screenings to be recommended.
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Dr. Y. Nancy You, a colorectal cancer surgeon at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. You and her colleagues have studied bacteria and other microbes in tissue samples from rectal cancer patients. They found differences based on age. You said changes in the makeup of microorganisms in the digestive tract spurred by diet, antibiotic use or other factors might drive inflammation and increase cancer risks. Some doctors suspect that cancer-causing exposures might have started during patients’ childhoods, something that is difficult to trace. Unlike when smoking drove up lung cancer deaths in the 20th century, doctors suspect there isn’t a single carcinogen responsible for the current trends. Some worry young people’s rising cancer risks are a sign of deeper trouble.
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