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

There is no evidence of it, yet. Or that it has NOT caused cancer either...

I’ve lost 6 friends under 50 to cancer in the last 12 years. 29 year old who died from melanoma skin cancer caused by sunbeds, 36 yo Head and Neck which she thought was caused by HPV, 48 year old from a rare soft tissue skin cancer that was shitty genetics, the other three were all breast cancer in their late 40s.

They were all very thin, healthy eaters, sporty, had the odd glass of wine. I’m a lazy bitch who likes her chips, never eaten a salad if I could help it, used to drink like a fish. I have a fair amount of survivor guilt about it. Between them 11 kids don’t have their Mum’s anymore, and that really breaks my heart.

But the amount of young people with colon and similar cancers is very worrying. I do think maybe micro plastics have something to do with it, they are in literally everything now.

Pesticide Action Network have a free guide to crops with the most and least pesticide contamination - I tend to only buy organic strawberries on this basis. I can't afford organic everything so this tells me what I should go for on the basis of most heavily sprayed. Even though the levels are apparently 'safe' (mmm) the cocktail of chemicals we imbibe through tap water (ours tastes so strongly of chlorine tang I can only drink it as tea/with cordial), food and in general must damage our bodies over time.

I would like to agree with all this but the few people I know of who died from cancer young were all very thin, active, and healthy - not big drinkers 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️. That’s just my experience though

Better awareness of our bodies? Advancing diagnostic tools? Better screening?

Or we could just blame the fat people as per usual 🤦🏻‍♀️

That's why they're called turbo cancers. A remarkable amount of people are only being diagnosed at stage 4.

What a load of bollocks. I was diagnosed with non genetically related cancer aged 40, at that time I had run 3 times a week for 20 years, ate healthily, had breast fed all 4 of my babies, was not stressed etc. I went to group afterwards and everyone was speculating whether there was something in the water, whether tinned tomatoes caused it and other nonsense . It was JUST BAD LUCK!

Rectal bleeding but one was thought to be caused by haemorrhoids during pregnancy.

Wow yes, this says what I was thinking.

Why would you suppose the vaccine rather than the virus itself? We know viruses - for example HPV - cause cancer.

Also had the thought it could be the virus.

It’ll end up being a conglomeration of all the factors so far discussed. It’s rare for there to be a single factor that explains everything.

One thing I haven’t seen explored much is the relationship between later childbearing and higher cancer incidence rates. The mean age when people had a child started on a sustained upward path from about the mid 1980s. Older eggs and older sperm-manufacturing equipment = more mutations.

also, we have had massively increased globalization and international movement in childhood is associated with higher rates of neoplasms. I think that is pretty interesting.

it sure as hell isn’t all caused by eg microplastics or eating more UPFs. I’m not saying those things don’t contribute massively, but single factor drum-beating is nearly always misguided (with notable exceptions for tobacco, alcohol and overweight as independent doom variables)

@wombpaloumbpa , I think it's the oil they put in processed food. Some oils are good, some bad.

I know a man who is in his 80's now, he worked in Scotland in the fields with heavy horse, and labouring.

They used to spray chemicals all the time, no protective gear. He had a little girl who was born profoundly disabled and only lived until she was 8 or 9.

In those days, children were kept in homes, but luckily her home was near to her actual home so he and his wife visited her regularly. He showed me photos of her, all dressed up nicely in a white lace frock. She was beautiful and he was obviously as proud as punch of her.

He is convinced that she was born the way she was due to chemical contamination affecting him before/around the time she was conceived. It has been the great sadness of his life.

Some humans have been very blase about use of chemicals on crops now and in the past. We never evolved to cope with these plus all the modern stress and other lifestyle issues.

And also pollution from cars and planes and container ships. From nuclear testing and accidents. From micro plastics and chemical fertilisers and pesticides.

It's so easy to just pinpoint the things we have some degree of control over. But there are lots that we are all exposed to

(I mean we could all choose to drive less, and fly less, and buy less crap I guess......)

Not just farm workers either, people who live near agricultural land are at risk. That idyllic countryside is not quite so gentle as it looks

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6170243/

So you're saying that as a society we're getting unluckier?

The increasing trend started long before Covid.

No, I’m saying that for my situation it was just bad luck as I’d looked after myself and the consultants confirmed that it was the case.

@Alltheyearround , where my uncle lived was close to a nuclear power station.
It was the area worst hit by the rain from Chernobyl.

The rain only fell on the grass that sheep eat. The grass the cows ate wasn't rained on even though they might be in the same field.

Some sort of 'perfect storm' combination of interacting factors is my guess.

I remember reading this sad story in the papers several years ago. I immediately thought diet or environment as they developed symptoms around the same time.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/five-children-orphaned-parents-bowel-cancer-die-both-weeks-omena-makeda-ubiaro-a7930021.html

Yes, and before the vaccines. That seems not to discourage the conspiracy theorists.

Can I just comment on your farming remark… a big part of farmers’ concerns and therefore the way they run their business is actually the prevention of nutrient loss and getting them back into the soil.. if they didn’t yields would really suffer.

A friend of mine got breast cancer in her 30s.