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.

There are masses of air fresheners on supermarket shelves so there must be a fairly sizable market for it. I've had one sitting for what must be years, I have to dust it off in the bathroom every so often as it's been sitting there unused for so long!

Air freshener as a cause of cancer is a bit of a stretch. Can't believe a GP said that.

Not deodorant then which most people use.

Like PPs, I suspect that we are (thankfully!) much better at diagnosing it now, and there are more treatment options available.

In terms of why cancer is more prevalent, I suspect that it's to do with chemicals and preservatives in (and on) foods, drinks and hygiene products (which go on our skins and surfaces around our houses), as well as levels of pollution. We probably eat and drink more sugar now than in previous generations, apparently have larger waistlines, are more stressed, smoke/vape and spend more time on any number of (potentially harmful) things to enhance our appearances. There is still asbestos floating around, especially in pipework and on old buildings, as well as in a surprising number of schools...

Personally I don't know if it's a contributing factor for cancer or not. I mean using it does create a guff of artifical chemicals which would be dangerous to ingest yet you automatically breathe it in by spraying it around you. On top of all of the other artifical chemicals and pollutants we're surrounded with on a daily basis. It is part of a larger chemical soup that we're increasingly living in? Who knows. I do try to avoid harsher cleaning products, air fresheners and the likes these days and am trying to use more natural products lately. UPFs are my next thing to tackle.

The two cancers you mention- breast and bowel, have a clear causal genetic link for early onset.

So as a GP your first guess is chemicals and food additives?

is it not more likely that now we know the mechanism of gene inheritance for these cancers, we take better histories for familial links, undergo genetic screening and physical screening earlier for those with a family/genetic history.

which then means we catch these cancers earlier, which in addition to better treatments, makes them survivable so the faulty genes remain in the population and are passed on.

we also have egg and sperm freezing so young cancer patients can have children later in life. Again meaning any genetic predisposition is passed on.

I wish I knew.

My sister had breast cancer in her early 30s. Had a double mastectomy and chemo. Then in her late 30s she had ovarian cancer, so she had a hysterectomy and chemo again. She’s cancer free now and I hope it stays that way.

She jokes that she’s running out of organs that can be taken.

The film Dark Waters is about this and fantastic

I agree. It's being identified earlier and earlier.

I kind of get what you mean about food. But I also think the Royal Family probably eat top quality organic food.
Yet Kate, a relatively young woman has had cancer.
The King ok much older has cancer too.

It's weird.

Are you a pedant? 😂

Synthetic chemicals are substances that are man-made by synthesis rather than being produced by nature in their natural form. They might be derived from a natural chemical or substance but the processing has turned it into something our bodies and nature would not recognise. So something like petroleum or petrol, yes it’s derived from something found inside the earth but we are most definitely not supposed to dig it up, burn it, inhale it and slather it on our lips (Vasel1ne anyone?).

Or the coating on non stick pans is polytetrafluoroethylene commonly known as Teflon. Teflon is a synthetic chemical made up of carbon and fluorine atoms. Each element can individually be found in nature but the fact they we’ve combined them together in an unnatural way and then the fact that we add heat and food and a scratch or two is what makes it toxic for us.

I for one will not be taking my chances so I try to restrict my family’s exposure as much as possible. Organic food, no seed oils, no Teflon, limit on plastic utensils, chopping boards, bottles and storage containers, lemon, vinegar and baking soda for cleaning, air purifiers, water filters, natural products in the bathroom, no flouride toothpaste, clothing made with natural fibres (no polyester), mineral suncream, the list goes on.

Microplastics, chemicals in ultra processed food, even baby powder - basically unnatural synthetic stuff that people have been putting into themselves or their body in contact with for a relatively recent period of time.

🤦‍♀️ Unless you're brain dead, you know full well what the poster mean by 'chemicals'. Not every single chemical in and of the world, but artifical chemicals which potentially cause us harm.

Cancer does appear to be rising in under 50s

https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2024/12/11/early-onset-bowel-cancer-rise-global-phenomenon/

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg26535332-200-the-alarming-rise-of-colorectal-cancer-diagnoses-in-people-under-50/

https://www.itv.com/news/2025-04-02/a-race-against-time-the-hunt-for-answers-to-rising-cancers-in-under-50s

I guess the counter argument to that is if you didn’t take antibiotics the you could die of a simple infection way before cancer.

I totally understand why people say chemicals as there is so Michael processed stuff that we eat now, even things that we song Elaine is processed is often processed and has chemical additives etc… but you wonder why it affects some people more than others.

Jesus, I’ve just read this back and thought I’d just keep it for fun I hate predictive text!! 😤

but you wonder why it affects some people more than others.

Because people have different levels of exposure and people are biologically and genetically different.

It's like stories about people like Churchill who supposedly drank a small bottle of champagne a day, whisky etc and lived to be 90 and this guy who smoked every day but was 114.
https://www.newsweek.com/worlds-oldest-man-guinness-world-record-smoking-tobacco-fredie-blom-947687

Plenty of people will when growing up have had very little exposure to ultra processed foods. Others will just live on it. It's not even economically divided. It just depends on how your parents run their home. Some people on the bread line will aim to cook cheaply with fresh ingredients like meat and potatoes. Others will be down at McDonalds.e

Same for all other chemicals - did you grow up in a house with a smoker or a vaper. soaps toothpaste and so on.

Then some people are more physically robust and their bodies apparently can tolerate things better that give others aggressive cancer.

I do wonder if it’s the contraceptive jab for women… or the Botox and fillers…

Across entrie population I could buy aging population and not dying form other things.

But rates are going up in under 50s - and I don't think it's diagnostic population testing at that age.

I heard diet mentioned a lot but I'd have said my kids ate no worse or I'd hope better than I did as a child. So wonder if epigentic is playing a role on top of everything else - how our DGP lived/ate - impacting their GC.

https://theconversation.com/how-your-grandparents-life-could-have-changed-your-genes-19136

The first example is the Dutch Hunger winter of 1944-45 where a quarter of the Netherlands was starving for three months. Women who were pregnant then produced smaller children more prone to diabetes and schizophrenia – traits which were also more common in their grandchildren.

Similar results came from a study of the Chinese famines of the 1950s. And in Overkalix, in remote Northern Sweden, the effects of good and bad harvests on adolescent boys had opposite effects on cardiac risk in their grandchildren.
An ongoing longitudinal study in Bristol that has followed thousands of young people and their parents, there is evidence that boys whose grandfathers smoked early in life had greater levels of obesity.

If so it will be really hard to unpick amougst all ther other candidates for the rise.

I think I had antibiotics way more than my DC in childhood.

It's much harder than in my childhood to get perscribed them when they did seem to get handed out just in case. So while it could be that why seeing the rise now?

Better detection rates. A much more polluted environment. People eating a diet of junk food and UPFs.

Michael and Elaine? 😂😂😂

1 in 2 is in part due to people living for longer.

It is all since covid vaccines.

I like watching Dr John Campbell.

Hard not to agree with him. Though I did take the jabs also my ds.

Thus is the only thing that has changed in the past few years.

Prepared to get flamed now.

It's not the only thing that's changed in the last few years. A great many other things have been mentioned on this thread. Covid itself will have had an effect.

I'm not sure it is more common. Years ago it would have been labelled as something different and there was less diagnosis. However, I do think processed food contributes to it.