Cancers rising in under 50’s. Do we have any sensible hypothesis as to why?

[ThatPeachSnake]

Ultra Processsed Foods? Drinking? I feel like we don’t smoke as much as previous generations…

I’m so very worried

You would need to factor in the smoking bans.

even though smoking rates were coming down, as smoking becomes anti social.

with smoking now not being allowed in pubs, shops, public spaces etc are those smokers now being forced to smoke in the home, in the car, and other places around kids.

I’m late 40’s and remember nights out coming home stinking of smoke. If the smoking ban was implemented in 2007 then the generation out in smoky pubs etc would be those born around 1987.

those people will be mid- late 30’s now, so pretty much the generation were referring to getting early cancers.

Is there any "fresh air" left to breathe anywhere now? If so, where is it, is it practical for people to breath this fresh air on a daily basis in any environment really?

Is there any food intake available on a daily basis that won't kill us? Is there any food that people can eat that is varied, appetising, filling, easy to prepare and source, inexpensive etc.? (I'm not even sure that so called organic and vegan products are totally without some minuses).

Are antibiotics in the food chain and in our own bodies weakening the immune system?

Is stress causing inflammation somewhere in the body every day?

Does exercise have to be so programmed and competitive? Is it a source of stress in itself with the early rising and breathing in the sweat etc. in a gym?

Is swimming in the sea a totally unpolluted environment?

Do/can people really relax and switch off for long periods each day?

There are so many things that we do every day often without thinking, compared with earlier years that may be having a big impact.

Doesn't really work. This is a world wide trend, and it's a gradual increase over decades. A one-off law change in the UK law suddenly leading to nicotine addicted parents smoking at home instead of in the pub doesn't fit the data.

CassandraWebb · Today 10:54
Thank you for your comment. Yes I’m doing fine, it’s been a long recovery physically but more mentally. I’m back at work now and trying to get on with things. My diets was ok, don’t drink or smoke. My oncologist told me I was unlucky. Xx

Older people grew up in a veritable fog of second-hand cigarette smoke in their homes, from the moment of their conception and through gestation and all of their childhood, at which point they probably began smoking themselves. Then at work, in pubs, clubs, planes, cinemas, everyone around was also smoking. It is highly unlikely the global increase in cancers in younger people is due to smoking, which has been banned in most public places and greatly reduced via stringent public health campaigns in most countries.

Poor diet, being overweight, smoking and drinking, lack of exercise.

I also think the amount of stress and burnout the people are experiencing these days is also leading to more health issues.

The UK really does not have many healthy, positive work environments/conditions...

Diet and sugar

hang on, we have a whole 10 page discussion here but has anyone given any links to actual numbers?

are we talking well I know so many more people with cancer, I wonder why?

or are there actual stats confirming this?

Here's one report:

Researchers report dramatic rise in cancer in people under 50 — Harvard Gazette

https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2024/06/03/cancer-rates-rising-in-under-50s-early-onset-24-percent-increase/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CEvidence%2520suggests%2520that%2520more%2520adults,1995%2520to%2520164.6%2520in%25202019.
yes it's definitely a phenomenon.

On previous threads on the subject there were always loads of people immediately saying "we're probably just diagnosing better/living longer/this is just anecdata" so there were always lots of posts early on rebutting by providing citations, but most people on this particular thread seem to be coming in with the knowledge/assumption that this is a real phenomenon that does need explaining, so we haven't had the normal flurry of links.
(Not a criticism of you toomanytonotice - it's a perfectly reasonable question).

Startingagainandagain · Today 11:06
Poor diet, being overweight, smoking and drinking, lack of exercise.

Strange that, for months when I was having chemotherapy, the under 50s who I met week after week weren’t overweight, drinkers, smokers. By far the opposite. Most were young with healthy lifestyles. Young mothers. It was quite frightening really.

I often wonder if any research/comparisons are done as to why some under 50's DON'T get cancer as opposed to their peers that do.

Lifestyle. plastics in the environment, build up of pollution, upf, could be all of these as all of these have been building up over the years.

I agree with this and I've heard that there is a link between exercising at a very high or professional level and motor neurone disease.
Exercise IS good, but up to a point!
I don't think marathons / ultra marathons etc are better than doing a more moderate amount of running.

Thanks.

i realised I was doing that internet thing of believing something I read without even questioning it.

if the research has been done showing the increase surely many of the questions raised on this thread have also been looked at- world epidemiology etc.

I agree with this and I've heard that there is a link between exercising at a very high or professional level and motor neurone disease.

There is, and it's been shown to be a causal link not just a correlation.

Red Meat. Processed meat. Too much dairy.

I often worry that something is conspiring to reduce our numbers. I'm convinced there is an intelligence at work in nature, something beyond our understanding. I don't mean intelligence is the sense of a conscious, rational mind working things out. I mean something closer to Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis – you know, Earth as a self-regulating organism.

It seems to be a law of nature that when any one thing multiplies to excess it is got rid of. Cancer itself is an out of control multiplication. The cells divide and divide and destroy the host. Well human beings must seem like a cancer to this planet. Our numbers have exploded in the last 100 or so years. Until the 20th-century, there had never been more than a billion human beings. Between 1900 and 1960 the number trebled to three billion. It's now eight billion and heading for ten.

When you think what we're doing – pumping poison into the soil and the air, hacking down the forests, driving animals to extinction, filling the world with cars and houses and blocks of flats, etc – we must seem like a dangerous parasite. I seriously wonder if nature is beginning to reduce our numbers – or at least trying to. Or maybe there is something in the body that triggers cancer when it senses overcrowding. We live in a very individualistic culture, and tend to think of ourselves as unique, isolated machines. In reality, we're a herd animal. And in nature it is common for animals to sacrifice themselves for the collective good. Could it be that at some unconscious level bodies are triggering cancer for the collective good?

I read somewhere that animals can die off in mysterious ways when their numbers get out of control. Darwinians say that excess numbers means starvation, with only the best adapted surviving. But nature doesn't obey the laws we project onto her. No doubt there are situations in which numbers get out of control but there isn't starvation, or enough predators.

Pandemics are certainly part of that. I often think of the Gaia hypothesis. It also helps me feel that even small changes I make are still positive changes.

So many people are just carrying on like our current way of life is fine

CassandraWebb,
Sorry, said don't answer because I didn't want to derail very interesting thread into farmers etc.

I do find it fascinating. There is clearly a genetic disposition for some cancers but I don’t know if we know what activates it in some people and not others (eg the examples of parents and children having the same cancer type at the same time but at very different ages).

At the other end of the scale, you have people like my dad who is approaching 80 and been morbidly obese most of his adult life. There must be something protective that he is doing as by the stats he shouldn’t have lived as long as he has already. Only thing I can think of (aside from the statins) is eating a lot of fresh fruit, veg and fish and doing a lot of low impact activity.

So sorry for those of you going through this awful disease. Just a note on environmental effects. Many years ago in the 80s my young cousin lived on a street that backed onto a railway track. During the mid 80s the were unusually high cases of childhood leukaemia including my cousin who was 9 at the time. Strangely a few years before there was a chemical leak from one of the trains on the tracks behind the street. This rail track was part of an industrial area so not passenger. There was an inquiry but sadly nothing was proven. Many of the children passed away my cousin included. Some adults were also affected. This wasn't a small street so the incidents were spaced out along the track and some didn't know about the other cases until my aunty investigated. Such an awful time for these families. Was an awful time for our family. My cousin went through such harsh treatment back then. So environment incidents can affect people around them. We just don't really know. X

Agreed. There has to be an environmental element along with any genetic predisposition. There’s research going on now (link below) to study energy drinks consumption and bowel cancer rates. We 80s and 90s kids did not grow up drinking that crap, or drinks like Coke Zero which was only invented in the 2000s.

https://classic.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT06137248

But it's all part of the same issue - how our environment, not just our individual lifestyles, affects our health.

I don’t think there is a massive rise in cancer, I just think that most people post it on social media now. I only know one person die of it, and her parents/ siblings all have died from it. I am lucky enough that no one in my life so far hasn’t had it. I do try to eat healthy and I don’t drink/smoke.