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

All of the above. Also Covid.
It causes inflammation and other viruses are known to cause cancer so some researchers are concerned it may be triggering cancer in younger people. I hope not but time will tell.

My friend recently recovered from breast cancer which she was diagnosed with at 27. She has a genetic mutation though which made her more susceptible to it.

I also know of a bloke in his thirties with stage 4 bowel cancer.

and 2 people in their 40s with mouth cancer.

sadly, my friends sister recently passed away from lung cancer and had never smoked in her life. She was just 34.

it’s definitely scary how much it’s affecting young people. I actually don’t know any older people with cancer at the moment although I accept this is skewed because I obviously know more people my own age. My fil recently has a skin cancer growth removed but that’s it

My hypothesis includes but is not limited to…
Plastics and microplastics
UPFs
Obesity
Stress
Lack of sleep
Lack of exposure to outdoors/nature/healthy bacteria and dirt which is proven to be good for overall health
Too many cleaning chemicals in homes
Pollution
Alcohol consumption
Synthetic fragrances, especially sprays (perfumes/spray deodorant/hair spray/air fresheners etc)
Many “beauty” products including moisturisers (literally being absorbed into skin), make up and lots of products containing parabens that are applied to skin

The apparent increase in cancer rates in younger age groups significantly predates the covid pandemic, which pretty much discounts covid as a main explanation.

Looking at Japan it has one of the lowest obesity rates in the world despite being a high income country.

Yet it has one of the lowest cancer rates in the developed world as well as having one of the lowest covid mortality rates.

I wish there was more screening for cancer before symptoms develop, e.g. yearly blood tests and other checks. This thread has made me very paranoid.

The good news is that there is a lot of very promising work being done on this sort of screening right now. The less good news is that confirming whether this screening can translate into cast iron lower death rates will take time.

Processed foods,
Smoking,
Lack of exercise

You don't think air pollution/nuclear/ pesticides/plastics etc play any part then?

I hear Wi-Fi is banned for children and restricted for particular distances (such as proximity to school) in other countries. What if this is a contributing factor?

Probably, I wasn't aware that I had to list every substance known to man.
I was just saying things from the top of my head, and after watching a food programme recently that's what I learnt.
I don't have any evidence for plastics, pollution etc.

Stress!

Very sorry to read of all the young people suffering with or dying of cancer on this thread. I don't think those talking about diet etc are blaming anyone at all - it's environmental and down to society that most of us end up living this way. It's not about being a veggie or having a 'healthy' diet (does that include oils like vegetable spreads, low fat alternatives?). A healthy diet is basically fruit and veg with very little meat and unprocessed grains and very few of us could say we only eat this.
I'm very fit and in 2024 would describe myself as healthy, but compared to pre-modern times it would still be considered terrible I'm sure. I eat loads of veg but I also had a scone today,. crisps last week, chocolate the other night. I'm still slim and healthy, very fit, but I know this food is absolute crap for my body.
Bread
Cakes
Sugar
Vegetable oils
Crumpets, croissants, cereals, pasta, noodles, wraps, pittas, stuff with oil added like mayo and hummus. Dressings with oil etc. It's in so much shop bought food that could still be part of a healthy and/veggie diet.
The meaning of a true healthy diet is lost in my opinion. If I had cancer, people would say I was so fit and healthy. In reality I've been putting crap like the above into my body for over 30 years. Not every day, sure, but enough for me to be worried and considering cutting it all out. Most of us eat way more processed food than we realise.

Evidence?
All research I've seen indicates no link between mobile usage & brain tumours.
Speaking as someone who's mum died from a brain tumour & whose DCs school has recently lost a pupil to a brain tumour too.

Rubbish they pump in our food, cosmetics everything.

I live in an agricultural country where people have traditionally eaten a lot of meat, and I would imagine people eat a bit less now, especially with the COL crisis.

Many young people here have bowel cancer, and it's usually not diagnosed until they are at stage 4, so it's not that it is being picked up early.

Mainly because everyone is eating processed shite full of chemicals, along with heads in phones all day long , scrolling endlessly through depressing shite and not getting out in fresh air or communicating face to face with people.

There is a link under similar threads at the bottom of this page, it states that the increase in cancer in under 50 is due to accelerated rate of aging in their bodies. Things that accelerate aging are stress, alcohol, poor diet, sun exposure, trauma, pollution, toxins. It’s interesting that a couple of users have said that they know youngish marathon runners with cancer. Extreme exercise, although often thought of as the optimal health activity, must stress the body and wouldn’t it therefore be aging?

There is no evidence this is a thing. None at all

I'm almost 65, and that is the way people have eaten for all my life.

Not the crisps every day of course, but fish and chips were traditional Friday night fare back in the day. Many people ate sandwiches for their lunch- I would have thought it less common today going by the samples of what I saw young people having for their lunches when I worked.

Meat, chicken, eggs, cheese have alwasy been staples where I live, and people have been enjoying bbqs for decades.

Frustratingly impossible to pin it down. Obviously I haven’t a clue, but my gut feeling is:

• Drugs, both pharmaceutical and illegal. So many people use street drugs yet have no idea what is in them. Who the hell knows what is mixed into your cocaine or cannabis. We also use pharma drugs way too casually.
• The garbage we eat. Just this week I saw two young women come out of Sainsbury’s stuffing giant cookies. This was 10:30 in the morning. Both were at least three stone overweight as well. I’ve often seen this - people who literally can’t wait until they get to the car before they tear open a tray of donuts or something. I once saw a chubby 20-something girl in Tesco sharing a packet of pre-cooked bacon with her toddler. She couldn’t even wait until she got to the f-ing till. And then people have the nerve to whinge about the NHS not being properly funded!! Maybe it would be in better shape if we didn’t eat like pigs and put such a strain on it.
• Pollution and plastics and so on. The world’s population trebled from a billion to three billion between 1900 and 1960 and has now hit eight billion. I shudder to think what we’re doing. We’re quite literally poisoning the planet. In 1900 you had a billion humans. So though there was pollution, there were far fewer of us to pollute. We now have eight billion people all using plastics and pesticides and god knows what else.

I remember my grandfather telling me about the old guy who lived next door when he was a kid. This man was born in the 1870s and died aged 84 of pneumonia. He never visited a doctor or a dentist until the final week of his life, which was not uncommon in those days (according to my grandfather). People couldn’t afford to see one, and in many cases were terrified of them. That old chap never ate a bag of crisps or a chocolate bar or a can of coke in his life. He lived on what he grew in his garden. And he worked (on the local farm) right into his 70s. How many people today could reach their 80s without visiting the GP?

]What you're not seeing in the health old neighbour parable is the (very many) children that died in infancy or childhood, women who died in childbirth or post-partum, and those who just dropped dead from CHD or cancer because preventive healthcare wasn't a thing.

*healthy old neighbour parable

Exactly. People with my condition would have died in infancy or young adulthood after a pretty miserable and bed bound life. Now we can he treated, but a side effect of that treatment is a substantially increased risk of cancer. It's a price worth paying (even in the knowledge half brained idiots will decide I am to blame if I get cancer)

I'd strong suspect increased use of antibiotics. Just one course drastically reduces diversity in the gut microbiome and it never fully recovers. The gut is one of the main components of a healthy immune system, not to mention being vital in extracting adequate nutrients from food.