Disaster Gen X, millennials more likely to get cancer, new study shows - The study from the American Cancer Society found adults in their 30s, 40s and 50s are more likely than previous generations were to develop 17 different types of cancers, including breast, liver and pancreatic cancers.

Source: https://www.axios.com/2024/07/31/gen-x-millennials-cancer-increase
Archive: https://archive.is/KL3en

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6 hours ago - Health

Gen X, millennials more likely to get cancer, new study shows​

Tina Reed


A sweeping new study is widening the lens on a puzzling uptick in a range of cancers occurring among younger generations of patients.
Why it matters: It's the latest evidence that the burden of cancer could rise in the future despite major advances in treatment and prevention.

• The study from the American Cancer Society found adults in their 30s, 40s and 50s are more likely than previous generations were to develop 17 different types of cancers, including breast, liver and pancreatic cancers.
• Previous research has indicated alarming increases in certain cancers among younger adults, such as colorectal cancer.
• A National Cancer Institute study published in June concluded Gen Xers were more likely to be diagnosed with cancer as they aged than previous generations, NPR reported in June.

What they're saying: "It's really sort of scary to see all in one dataset," said Andrea Cercek, co-director of the Center for Young Onset Colorectal and Gastrointestinal Cancers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

• "But it definitely reflects what we've known and what we've noticed as well in our clinics," said Cercek, who wasn't involved in the study. "We really have no idea why."

What they found: The study used data from 23.7 million patients dating back to 1920 through 1990 to classify people based on their birth year because they're more likely to share social, economic and environmental factors during key developmental years.

• Of 34 cancers examined, half had increased incidence among younger adults, according to the study published Wednesday in The Lancet.
• Incidence of eight different cancers increased with each successive age cohort after 1920.
• In particular, adults born in the 1990 cohort were two or three times more likely to get cancers of the small intestines, kidney and pancreas (as well as the liver and bile duct in women) compared with those in born in the 1955 cohort at the same age.

Zoom in: In the case of five cancers — liver and endometrial in females, as well as gallbladder, testicular, and colorectal cancers — young adults were more likely to die compared with prior generations.

• That's particularly concerning because it's "despite the fact that we have much better drugs for a lot of them," ACS chief scientific officer William Dahut told Axios.

Reality check: Cancer is still far more likely to occur in older adults, with the median age of a cancer diagnosis in the U.S. at 66 years old, per the NCI.

• "It's still a much lower risk to have cancer in a young adult than someone over the age of 50," Dahut said.

• "However it can occur, and if you have a persistent symptom, and someone tells you, 'Well, you're too young for cancer,' that's not true."

Between the lines: Sedentary lifestyles and increased obesity may be key contributors to rising cancer incidence in younger generations. Ten of the 17 cancers with increased incidence are obesity-related, Dahut pointed out.

• But the picture is likely more complicated.
• For instance, colorectal cancer is considered an obesity-related disease. But the historical rise in obesity doesn't always track with the uptick of disease in young people, Cercek said.
• Additionally, she said, doctors report commonly seeing younger colorectal cancer patients who are active and at a healthy weight.

What to watch: Researchers are investigating potential environmental factors, such as exposure to carcinogens in food or antibiotic use, as well as lifestyle changes, including increased alcohol use.

• Ultraprocessed foods and the use of PFAS, known as "forever chemicals," are also being studied.
• But Dahut says genetic predisposition could be a key factor as well as early environmental exposures.

What to watch: The study could have implications for how doctors practice and for cancer screening.

• It could drive a push toward more at-home testing for cancer and increase patient responsibility for understanding their personal risk and pursuing screening accordingly, Dahut said.
• One other potentially related trend to watch: how much anti-obesity medications impact risk for cancer and change future trends, Dahut said.

 

[Stoneheart]

Thats what you get for not listening to real doctors for decades...

A Marlboro is an integral part of a balanced breakfast and you should take liquid snack daily.

You see, the silent generation started with a steak, a couple of eggs and a Marlboro every morning before going to work in the asbestos mines,,,

 

[Bland Crumbs]

The increasing cancer incidence rates over the successive younger generations up to those born around 1990 suggest there have been increases in the prevalence of carcinogenic exposures during early life or young adulthood in this generation, which have yet to be elucidated.

Oh...no one has any idea how it happened???

The water was poisoned. The air was poisoned. People started being fed a diet of garbage.

HOW COULD THIS HAVE HAPPENED???

I dunno I am pounding sulforaphane, nicotine(not via smoking or vaping), alcohol(because it is great) and hoping for the best.

 

[Foxxo]

im not sure it is. a properly fed chicken is still eating pesticide and GMO feed

What exactly is your point here, my Brother in Christ?

 

[Larry David's Opera Cape]

All the "do this to avoid cancer/don't do this or else you will get cancer" shit is cope and propaganda.

Very few personal choices have a major impact on your risk. Even things that are proven to have an influence don't have an overwhelming influence. And we know this, at some level- simply observing the old irony of "pack a day guy is fine at 90, non-smoker dead at 55" shows us this.

All this "I won't get cancer because I don't eat seed oils" or "you will definitely get cancer because you keep your phone in your pants pocket" shit is pure emotional cope and fiction. It's like a kid trying to fill in the ocean by dumping buckets of sand into the tide.

Genes and environment are almost all of it. You have no control over either. Thank God for every day you get, because not one of them was ever guaranteed to you, no matter how healthy or fit you think you are.

 

[The Cunting Death]

I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up with cancer too. It's what killed most of my family except my grandpa (30 year war vet who sat on his ass for the last 30 years of his life and ended up dying of Diabetes)

 

[Suel Forrester]

What exactly is your point here, my Brother in Christ?

well, in short, there's no escape, might as well just eat what tastes good because all the food is poison anyway

 

[Otterly]

If you have a Foreman grill and a pressure cooker you’re better off. Air fryer for an extra bonus. (Don’t use seed oils to fry. Very nasty effects it can have on your food)

Make sure both are stainless steel.

Genes and environment are almost all of it. You have no control over either.

You have some control over environment. You can avoid things that are definitely avoidable and linked; things like obesity for example. It’s no guarantee you do t get something but you may as well make as many good choices as you can. The same choices also help with stuff like trying to avoid ingested endocrine disrupting chemicals .
-dknt; be fat, eat too much sugar, smoke, drink too much, don’t eat chemical crap, try to keep your gut healthy, fast occasionally , don’t cook with PFAS/PTFE type nonstick cookware, don’t eat or store food or heat food in plastic. Don’t have anal sex or multiple sex partners. Try to avoid goods sprayed with pesticides - all fruit and veg has a little sticker on with a number code, learn what it means. Grow your own food if you can, some is better than nothing. Eat organic and avoid meats from outside the uk which are allowed hormones etc.
you can try to avoid some of the worst culprits. The rest is genetics and chance.
I also avoid a lot of products that go on the skin, and perfumed things

 

[teriyakiburns]

Maybe living your life with a radiation source constantly on your hand and next to your dick isn't the smartest way of doing things

The sun is a radiation source. Visible light is radiation. You'd better go spend your life in a sealed lead box, because electromagnetic radiation is literally everywhere all the time.

Or you could learn the difference between electromagnetic and particle radiation, and the difference between ionising and non-ionising radiation. Phones do not emit ionising radiation. The non-ionising electromagnetic radiation they do emit would have to be many orders of magnitude more powerful to cause any sort of lasting harm to your body.

 

[Otterly]

The colorectal cancers one is interesting because HPV infection is a massive cause but it’s never ever mentioned in the press. The most you’ll get is a coy reference to STDs in the list of things that can cause cancer generally and the reader thinks it’s linked to cervical cancer and nothing more. The rise in multiple sex partners and anal is one significant cause of the CRC uptick. Note that this is happening on a background of the younger part of this cohort also being largely vaccinated against HPV.
The rest is probably a mix of eating crap, obesity, and antibiotics nuking gut flora. If you need antibiotics take them of course, but once they’re out of your system, eat plenty of fermented and cultured foods like kefir, yoghurt, skyr etc and also plenty of good veg and avoid sugar/processed food for a bit.
I am also convinced that the emulsifiers we have in absolutely fucking everything don’t help.

 

[NoReturn]

I am also convinced that the emulsifiers we have in absolutely fucking everything don’t help.

Please explain?

 

[Otterly]

Please explain?

Basically emulsifiers are in everything these days. They seem to create a condition of constant long term inflammation. Your gut is covered in mucous which protects ot and there are interactions between the mucous and the gut bacteria too. The emulsifiers seem to break down the mucous like soap, and they seem to disrupt how the mucous and the bacteria ‘talk’. The outcome is long term inflammation, which can lead to disease. They also seem to lead to obesity in mouse models. Let me try to find a good paper
Here: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14232

 

[Happy Fish]

The sun is a radiation source. Visible light is radiation. You'd better go spend your life in a sealed lead box, because electromagnetic radiation is literally everywhere all the time.

Or you could learn the difference between electromagnetic and particle radiation, and the difference between ionising and non-ionising radiation. Phones do not emit ionising radiation. The non-ionising electromagnetic radiation they do emit would have to be many orders of magnitude more powerful to cause any sort of lasting harm to your body.

Well if you're going to be like that: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/07/01/health-risks-of-cell-phone-radiation/

 

[LurkTrawl]

I will continue to only drink out of plastic bottles, only eat out of tupperware, and eat only with plastic cutlery - all of which I microwave - because plasticmaxxing until my balls turn into a beanbag chair is the true path to immortality.

 

[Otterly]

I will continue to only drink out of plastic bottles, only eat out of tupperware, and eat only with plastic cutlery - all of which I microwave - because plasticmaxxing until my balls turn into a beanbag chair is the true path to immortality.

And you may well live to a hundred. A lot of it is genetics and blind chance. I think we all know some old codger who smoked fifty a day, worked with chemicals and lived off fry ups and made it to a hundred. Worry and stress can kill too.

 

[Mepsi Pax]

The sun is a radiation source. Visible light is radiation. You'd better go spend your life in a sealed lead box, because electromagnetic radiation is literally everywhere all the time.

Or you could learn the difference between electromagnetic and particle radiation, and the difference between ionising and non-ionising radiation. Phones do not emit ionising radiation. The non-ionising electromagnetic radiation they do emit would have to be many orders of magnitude more powerful to cause any sort of lasting harm to your body.

Very glib but there is actually some argument on this, the people doing studies do know the difference between ionising and non-ionising, by the way.

There's a small amount of research that suggests you can get tumors from weak radiation sources. I seem to recall that they had a human study (just a statistical thing) to go off as well as animal ones. Is it a major effect? Probably not. But you are bathed in radiation constantly now and the whole computers and phones in your face and on your dick, er, lap, is novel enough that we don't really know. Also it's not just cancer but the usual endocrine disrupting effects that all the other shit like plastics have, and it's not just your phone one time but cumulative from all sources.

 

[behindyourightnow]

The colorectal cancers one is interesting because HPV infection is a massive cause but it’s never ever mentioned in the press. The most you’ll get is a coy reference to STDs in the list of things that can cause cancer generally and the reader thinks it’s linked to cervical cancer and nothing more. The rise in multiple sex partners and anal is one significant cause of the CRC uptick. Note that this is happening on a background of the younger part of this cohort also being largely vaccinated against HPV.

I don't think it could be too much of a significant cause, given that this is still affecting many more men than women: jokes aside, statistically there is only so much of the male population that can be having hidden buttsex. Also, aren't younger people having less sex these days?

My own personal crazy theory is that long-term vitamin D deficiency contributes a lot, via harm to the immune system. The trends seem to match up with sunscreen use becoming more common, plus no one goes outside anymore

 

[azure hours]

Yeah yeah yeah, more bad news for my generation, what the fuck else is new you nigger.

 

[Fleece Johnson]

My own personal crazy theory is that long-term vitamin D deficiency contributes a lot, via harm to the immune system. The trends seem to match up with sunscreen use becoming more common, plus no one goes outside anymore

Vit D and adequate sun exposure is very important for overall health and the immune system but, if your theory is true, then that would mean East Asian womens who tend to avoid sunlight like vampires and Muslim womens forced to wear burkas and be chained to the stove would have the highest rates of cancer.

 

[Sniperwoof]

Millennials and zoomy zooms are incredibly gay compared to psst generations so I'm not even remotely shocked to find out ass cancer rates are through the roof.

 

[behindyourightnow]

Vit D and adequate sun exposure is very important for overall health and the immune system but, if your theory is true, then that would mean East Asian womens who tend to avoid sunlight like vampires and Muslim womens forced to wear burkas and be chained to the stove would have the highest rates of cancer.

I'm talking about CRC specifically.

I'm not sure what the rates are between countries/ethnicities, but I don't think it's the single cause, just that it's contributing to the rise. East Asian women might be avoiding the sun, but they're not doing that AND subsisting on Western processed food for decades.

Millennials and zoomy zooms are incredibly gay compared to psst generations so I'm not even remotely shocked to find out ass cancer rates are through the roof.

Anal cancer is a different variety. Colorectal cancer mostly happens in the large colon (that's the area that is deeper inside the body than the rectum: the rectum is the area that gets penetrated during anal sex), and it's deadlier the "earlier" in the colon it is because obvious symptoms often don't show up until it's too late to treat.

Also, if you look at any survey, the rates of same-sex activity have stayed pretty regular over the decades. Almost all of the increase in "gay" millennials and zoomers is due to nonbinaries calling themselves "queer" or women in heterosexual marriages declaring that they are bisexual. Overall young people are having less sex and losing their virginity later. The modern LGBT/"queer" lifestyle is mostly just people sitting alone in their rooms and occasionally masturbating to anime.