Rising rates of cancer in young people prompts hunt for environmental culprit
▻https://archive.ph/2024.08.07-041555/https://www.ft.com/content/491d7760-c329-4f57-9509-0da36bc9e7de
The idea of #cancer as predominantly a disease of old age is beginning to creak. An analysis last year showed that, in the G20 group of industrialised nations, rates of several cancers are rising faster among the young than among the old.
Now, scientists at the American Cancer Society have confirmed the trend across a wider range of cancers, with statistics broadly suggesting that a Gen X or Millennial is more likely to develop certain types of the disease than her Baby-boomer parents. Half of the 34 types studied showed a “birth cohort effect”, meaning they are increasingly common among successively younger cohorts.
[…]
Bafflingly, many of the new clinic’s young patients are in good shape, exercise regularly and eat healthily. That is prompting a hunt for environmental carcinogens capable of affecting entire generations. Last year, New Zealand researchers showed that microplastics, now found everywhere and ingested from infancy onwards, could disrupt the gut lining. The prevalence of microplastic pollution since the 1960s — the tiny plastic particles come from consumer products and the breakdown of industrial waste — has the right timeline and might explain the compounding effect between generations, but it needs further investigation.
#microplastiques #cancer #jeunes
Source:
Differences in cancer rates among adults born between 1920 and 1990 in the USA: an analysis of population-based cancer registry data - The Lancet Public Health
▻https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(24)00156-7/fulltext
▻https://www.thelancet.com/cms/asset/7e57a199-90a6-4451-b369-61f85bfca303/gr1.jpg