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.
Plastic Sugar Teflon Roundup Lead Pesticides Fertilizers
Just a few of the hazardous substances we regularly come into contact with on a semi-daily basis. The cause of the problem is capitalism.
It’s not just capitalism. I’m from east Germany and you wouldn’t believe how much crap was buried, fumed into the air or pumped into the water in the name of peace and socialism.
Don’t forget, Chernobyl happened because of a cost saving measure.
BTW, you forgot alcohol, tobacco, vapes, stress and enforced sedentary lifestyle in your cancer list.
in the name of peace and socialism.
That was the false justification because the actual reason was capitalism.
Don’t forget, Chernobyl happened because of a cost saving measure.
Cutting costs to make a profit is capitalism - especially when the “externality” is a catastrophe for other people.
Younger generations drink less and use less tobacco than basically any other generation, so that’s probably not it.
I don’t know what you mean by “enforced sedentary lifestyle,” but young people tend to do activities that don’t involve exercise in their free time: computer use, phone use, video games, etc.
I think the fact that obesity is up something like 20% since the 90s is probably related. Young people exercise less and eat like shit, which seems pretty related to rectal/colon cancers.
I don’t know what you mean by “enforced sedentary lifestyle,”
Skill issue, I’d argue. May I introduce you to the concept of “working in an office”?
Honestly the working from home with less walking and more sitting seems like the biggest reason for this since there’s some pretty major dietary differences between all these countries, but they probably have a higher rate of WFH compared to other countries.
Read the article. The trend started in 1990, a time where wfh meant assembling ballpoint pens or prostitution.
Lead and Teflon have gone down since the 90s. I’d say it’s mostly plastic. Up and into most all of the 80’s everyone drank tap water and sodas/other drinks were all canned or glass bottles.
Then around 1990 everyone started putting their drink in plastic. Then 15 years later for some dumbass reason, people started to buy and drink all their water out of plastic as well.
Problem with PFAS and many other stuff is that it is accumulating in the biosphere. So while the new emissions go down, you still end up being exposed to more and more of them over time. They still get into the water and then into the plants and animals that you eat later.
The largest contributor to the micro-plastics in your body is tire dust, though, it’s not new. More of it since the 90s, yeah, maybe there’s a threshold?
Old people come into contact with all that stuff too, 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.
My point is that a lot of these things have flooded the market since the early 80s, which would make the tail end of Generation X the first generation that’s been in constant contact with these things their entire lives.
According to the American Cancer Society’s 2024 stats cancer deaths are declining in some areas (ie: lung cancer) but increasing in many others.
In 2024, 2,001,140 new cancer cases and 611,720 cancer deaths are projected to occur in the United States.
- Cancer mortality continued to decline through 2021, averting over 4 million deaths since 1991 because of reductions in smoking, earlier detection for some cancers, and improved treatment options in both the adjuvant and metastatic settings.
However, these gains are threatened by increasing incidence for 6 of the top 10 cancers.
- Incidence rates increased during 2015–2019 by 0.6%–1% annually for breast, pancreas, and uterine corpus cancers and by 2%–3% annually for prostate, liver (female), kidney, and human papillomavirus-associated oral cancers and for melanoma.
Incidence rates also increased by 1%–2% annually for cervical (ages 30–44 years) and colorectal cancers (ages <55 years) in young adults. Colorectal cancer was the fourth-leading cause of cancer death in both men and women younger than 50 years in the late-1990s but is now first in men and second in women.
- Progress is also hampered by wide persistent cancer disparities; compared to White people, mortality rates are two-fold higher for prostate, stomach and uterine corpus cancers in Black people and for liver, stomach, and kidney cancers in Native American people. Source
you’re conflating mortality metrics with incidence metrics. increasing incidents are very likely biased by improved detection and reporting.
anyway the point is not that cancer is going away or anything, but that you can’t easily say “pollution is giving young people cancer” as the top comment is.
Yes, but capitalism is an economic model that aids and abets greed. Where greed is rewarded almost exclusively.
Which economic model do you prefer?
The distinction between capitalism and socialism isn’t always a bright line.
And communism has yet to succeed.
