There are rising cases of breast, colorectal and other cancers in people in their 20s, 30s and 40s. What is going on?

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.

  • Kanzar@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    3·
    1 month ago

    Antibiotics and other prescription medications are more often prescribed to older folks, so the increase should be seen in those populations, not primarily more in younger populations. It is unlikely that antibiotics or other similar medical interventions are responsible for the phenomenon seen in the op article.

    Also, as a prescriber, I do warn my patients of the dangers of taking antibiotics willy nilly. 🤷🏻‍♀️

    • Ephoron@lemmy.kde.socialEnglish
      1·
      1 month ago

      Antibiotics and other prescription medications are more often prescribed to older folks

      But https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6996207/

      In this study, we also analyzed antibiotic prescription rates according to age. The highest prevalence rates were observed in patients aged 71 years (80.3%) followed by 4-year-old children (60.7%).

      Since 71 year olds wouldn’t show any long term effects, that leaves the four year old group.

      as a prescriber, I do warn my patients of the dangers of taking antibiotics willy nilly.

      Of course you do, I’ve no doubt you’re very diligent. Because now we know they have serious negative consequences. 40 years ago, however, the people this article is about would have merely been told they were “safe and effective”. That’s exactly the point I’m making.

      You now have to take precaution with a medicine because of new information about its safety that wasn’t known at the time it was developed.

      Same is true for every other factor mentioned in the report. Human innovation is absolutely suffuce with things we thought were safe and effective at the time, but later turn out to be quite unsafe.

      Yet taking this unequivocal fact and applying it to a rational scepticism about new medicines has, since 2020, become ‘misinformation’.