Why is cancer so common now

[KingKitty]

I know 4 people all under 45 who died of cancer within the past three years. It's so so so so sad. They are just so so so young. I am just after hearing of another person with cancer all over her body.

.Why is cancer so common now and why is it taking people even young people?

It's so scary.

‘Chemicals’! Everything is made of chemicals - you breath O2, you drink H2O

I have quite an interest in artificial sweeteners. I avoid them completely as I have gut issues they wreck my stomach.

I have gut dysbiosis so read up as much as I can on this subject. The latest research shows artificial sweeteners are having a detrimental effect on the gut microbiome and a healthy gut bacteria helps with the immune system and a healthy immune system helps to kill off rouge cells. I do think there is something in this but it is just one piece of a huge jigsaw. Modern day lifestyles are certainly contributing. My gastroenterologist is seeing more young people with bowel cancer and she is convinced it is lack of good quality foods, obesity and no exercise.

In saying that our 4 year old niece died from a malignant brain tumour, I can't imagine there was anything in her lifestyle at such a young age to have caused it. Sometimes wicked things happen to those who don't deserve it.

She told us all, get your weight down if you need to, stop smoking & drinking as 50+% now get cancer

Sensible advice for anyone, eat better, give up the fags and drink only in moderation.
Did she mention the fact that people are living longer as the reason 1 in 2 people will be diagnosed with cancer ? Improved diagnostics and screening programmes, increased knowledge in the population of worrying symptoms ?

If you are obese, smoke and drink far too much, chances are ill health in the form of diabetes and all its associated multi organ issues, COPD or liver disease, is going to have a detrimental impact long before cancer gets you !

Cancer in the young really isn’t common but it is increasing. Virtually all experts think that it has increased about 20% over about 30 years. But, remember, this is from a very low base.

The main explanation seems to be obesity. But maybe microplastics also have played a role.

And maybe COVID will too, but it is way too early to tell. But the mechanism will be via persistent inflammation due to the disease, not due to vaccination. And stress may also play a role, both directly and indirectly (less healthy behaviours when stressed).

The MacMillan website states that the mortality rate has increased at a much lower level than the diagnoses rate in the uk. Which is hopeful.
however I agree that the incidence rate must be influenced by our lifestyles- I worry about the young people
i know who rely so heavily on UPF
and take away food

100% agree. I am 52 and love to watch archive clips on YouTube of everyday people just going about their everyday lives in towns and cities during the 60's/70's and 80's. You won't see a single overweight person let alone an obese one.

In the late 80's I went to Florida and for the first time in my life I saw very obese families, so many of them. I had never seen anything like it in my life. Fast food outlets were everywhere, hardly any vegetable options in the restaurants and everyone drove because there were hardly any pavements and huge shopping malls were you would park right up to the door and walk in, no catching the bus into town and walking miles to do you shopping like in the UK. It was a strange sight but sadly it is not uncommon to see this now in the UK, people drive just round to the corner shop, to pick their kids up from school or worst still drive to collect a Costa coffee.

If you don't realise that it's because we aren't dying of other things and that we are diagnosing a lot more cases, you need to read a lot more before having an opinion. These vague ideas and rumours about what might cause cancer are incredibly damaging to public health. Even in the 80s the child mortality rate was much, much higher. Also remember that cancer in children is genetic, not environmental.

Perhaps we think that everyone is incredibly rational and stops doing things the second they are linked to cancer? The level of obesity and alcohol consumption in the UK shows us that isn't true. People also still smoke although the dangers have been known for decades, because the general public's understanding of risk is very poor. If we would just avoid the optional things we already know cause cancer, we would avoid (eventually, because for many the damage is done) a huge proportion of cancers. Yet we don't, or we change very slowly.

We do have lots of advice on how to minimise our risk of various kinds of cancers. A lot of it is drowned out by the siren voices of businesses who want to sell us things that are not good for us, but which we find so attractive that we buy them anyway. We're not a rational species, no matter what we tell ourselves, and we tend to ignore advice we don't want to hear.

The simple fact is we all have to die of something. In the past health care was far less effective than it is now and most people couldn't afford it anyway. Until the 19th century, we didn't have clean water piped into our homes, we didn't have efficient sewage systems, we didn't understand how infections are passed on, we didn't have anaesthetics or antiseptic conditons for operations and we didn't have X-rays. The only vaccination was for smallpox. We had no antibiotics. People died from infections all the time, especially children and babies.

In the 20th century life expectancy rocketed because of advances in all the above, plus the welfare state guaranteeing that people wouldn't die of starvation or malnutrition, plus the much maligned health and safety culture. We still shot ourselves in the foot, though, by taking up smoking in large numbers, leading to a huge increase in lung cancer and heart disease. Very slowly the message got through that smoking is bad for you so most people no longer do it and that's helped with reducing the smoking-related diseases.

Most people are now very old when they die, and they die of diseases that are more common in old age like Alzheimer's and cancer. It's debatable whether all those extra years of life are worth it if they're spent in poor health and confusion, but that's another debate.

Meanwhile many of us (I include myself here) are sabotaging our own health by ignoring all the health advice and eating a poor diet, or a decent diet but too much of it, and taking too little exercise, leading to unprecedented levels of obesity from childhood on. Too little fibre in the diet and too little variety in our food means the gut doesn't work as it should. Too many fat cells in the body and the hormone system is disrupted. Both those things are being looked at, as I understand it, to see if they're contributing to an increase in cancers in younger people.

This. Although we do also know that all the chemicals we pump into our bodies from food/the environment these days increase risk significantly. So it’s a double whammy of higher risk and better identification.

I don’t think (as PP said) it is necessarily more common just that we know about it. Both my grandfathers died of it and my great grandmother, my great grandfather had it (lung cancer) and survived living on one lung. also my mother and my sister both died of it. My husband had it but survived.

Tbh I don’t suffer with health anxiety in general but I am worried about the amount of it in my family.

As others have said as well as other factors it was never really talked about. When you think now it's a good thing we have charity events to raise money and awareness of cancer.

I don't know when this changed but my parents said people would just refer to it as 'the big C' and it was a death sentence as few effective treatments. Also families would sometimes ask doctors not to tell their relative that they had 'the big C' or even that it was terminal.

I think we’re in an unpleasant ‘sweet spot’ between lack of knowledge about the causes of cancer (diet, chemicals, sun) in the 70s and 80s and improved treatment, which will come in the next thirty years.

The food that you eat, the nutrition you get as a baby to 2 years old is extremely important - it basically set you up for life or can fail you for life.

Look at the diet that children under 2 are having now compared to the diet in the 1960 for children under 2 and the younger ages of cancer in peoples 30s and 40s

Rubbish foods and artificial cancer causing chemicals. Did you know that plug in air 'fresheners' contain benzene which is a major carcinogen? And people and their children are breathing this inconstantly when they're in the house. Cosmetics and body care products probably a risk too.

Agree.
A friend has stage 1 prostate cancer, he’s in his 70’s and will be monitored, no treatment atm.

I am in my 60’s. I have incurable cancer but again other than fatigue and weight loss I’m ok. I too am monitored and since diagnosis 2 years ago have not had treatment. However my immune system is compromised and I have viruses and infections regularly.

I do often wonder about all the household chemicals, as well as junk food. All that disinfecting of everything, air fresheners, a general excess of uber-hygiene.

I think the 1 in 2 figure is partly to do with the longevity of the elderly these days. My granda got leukaemia in his late 80’s but had he died at the average age of 81ish then cancer wouldn’t have been the cause, if that makes sense.

I've been a GP for over 25 years.

25 years ago people did die more often of heart attacks and strokes and so this would explain why we are finding more cancers in older people because they are living longer. However I am shocked at the increase in the number of young people with cancer. I remember in the practice many years ago all the GPs being shocked at a lady getting breast cancer in her 30s. It was almost unheard of. Now I can name several patients and some friends who have developed breast cancer in their 30s. Bowel cancer is another one - I saw very few young people with bowel cancer but there are definitely more being diagnosed in their 40s and 50s.

We discuss new cancer diagnoses every month in practice meetings. There's around 5-10 new cancers every month. I'd say that's well over 1% of our practice population diagnosed with a new cancer every year but as I'm including everyone including everyone under 18 the % is much higher.

Screening and testing helps pick up cancers that in previous years would have been missed but a lot of screening (breast and bowel) doesn't start until age 50.

Im guessing chemicals and food additives are the main culprit. Back in the 70s there was none of the chemicals used for cleaning and washing clothes. Never remember air fresheners in my house growing up. There were processed foods but in the main it was all fresh.

You've got kids who eat nothing but snack foods and junk and the parents claim arfid.

The problem is if your kids are picky with food (and most are at some point) it's all too easy to reach for junk food that tastes nicer rather than persevere. It takes about 16 tastes to get used to something but parents dont persevere. Google it.

Whereas in the 60s there was nothing else.

Antibiotic use is linked to bowel cancer (and I wouldn’t be surprised if all cancers personally) because it messes up gut health.

Processed food people are not cooking as much everything is about convenience that's my theory.

When my son started school he wanted to go to the park everyday it was so annoying because it was always packed. One of the mums called them chicken nugget mum's. I always tried to start the meal before school pickup and then finish when I got back.

Food = Love

My son loved my chicken soup he called it chicken in the soup. Every time I cook soup I put fresh thyme in it helps with flus and colds. A homeopath recommended it to my partner when he was unwell to put in warm water so we added it to our soup instead. Cooking from scratch used to feel tiresome but the more I cooked the quicker I was to put flavours together. It's not good to fry everyday.

I dont know anyone who uses air freshener now
We had it in the 80s...

I know quite a few people who have had cancer (and/or died from cancer) young ranging from 28 to 63 and every single one of them was overweight as a child and some of them struggled with their weight as an adult. 4 out of 5 of them drank alcohol regularly.
So I think both of these things must contribute to an extent.

Come on. You were being pedantic knowing full well what that poster meant by chemicals. The rudeness at the end of your message to that poster backs up the fact that you were being rude and pedantic.

You obviously felt smart by pulling the poster up on her use of the word however everyone else seemed to have the cop on to what she meant, no one on here commented to show that they were taking her literally. So either you were being pedantic or you are stupid yourself. Perhaps both.