'These are people in the prime of life': The worrying puzzle behind the rise in early-onset cancer
'These are people in the prime of life': The worrying puzzle behind the rise in early-onset cancer
There are rising cases of breast, colorectal and other cancers in people in their 20s, 30s and 40s. What is going on?
Over the past 10 years, rates of colorectal cancer among 25 to 49 year olds have increased in 24 different countries, including the UK, US, France, Australia, Canada, Norway and Argentina.
The investigation's early findings, presented by an international team at the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) congress in Geneva in September 2024, were as eye-catching as they are concerning.
The researchers, from the American Cancer Society (ACS) and the World Health Organization's (WHO's) International Agency for Research on Cancer, surveyed data from 50 countries to understand the trend. In 14 of these countries, the rising trend was only seen in younger adults, with older adult rates remaining stable.
Based on epidemiological investigations, it seems that this trend first began in the 1990s. One study found that the global incidence of early-onset cancer had increased by 79% between 1990 and 2019, with the number of cancer-related deaths in younger people rising by 29%. Another report in The Lancet Public Health described how cancer incidence rates in the US have steadily risen between the generations across 17 different cancers, particularly in Generation Xers and Millennials.
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Funny how so many responses have skimmed over the implication of antibiotic use.
Now ask yourselves, these antibiotics... If you'd have asked your doctor at the time "are these drugs safe and effective?", what do you think the answer would have been?
Now ask your doctor if the latest vaccine is safe and effective and tell me how confident you feel about their response.
Funny how the article lists SO MANY other potential causes and the one you pick out is one that fits into your own information bubble.
Its the one that coincides with a concern of mine, yes.
Do you comment on absolutely everything regardless of whether it interests you or not?
Are you suggesting that the mere fact of being more interested in some issues than others indicates some kind of unreasonable level of fantisicm?
Are you implying vaccines cause cancer
No, not at all.
I'm pointing out that concern about vaccine safety is legitimate given that many treatments thought "safe and effective" at the time later turn out to have been harmful. The effect antibiotics have on the gut biome being just the latest example.
People concerned about the safety of the drugs they are told to use are not all "lunitic conspiracy theorists" as often branded. Some simply have a completely reasonable caution about the hubris of the medical establishment.
Why do you bring this up here then
Seemed as good a place as any.
I assume the report wasn't posted in the spirit of "oh well, nothing we can do about it". I assume the message was, "let's try not to let this happen again".
But maybe im assuming too much basic human compassion.
Antibiotics and other prescription medications are more often prescribed to older folks, so the increase should be seen in those populations, not primarily more in younger populations. It is unlikely that antibiotics or other similar medical interventions are responsible for the phenomenon seen in the op article.
Also, as a prescriber, I do warn my patients of the dangers of taking antibiotics willy nilly. 🤷🏻♀️
Antibiotics and other prescription medications are more often prescribed to older folks
But https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6996207/
In this study, we also analyzed antibiotic prescription rates according to age. The highest prevalence rates were observed in patients aged 71 years (80.3%) followed by 4-year-old children (60.7%).
Since 71 year olds wouldn't show any long term effects, that leaves the four year old group.
as a prescriber, I do warn my patients of the dangers of taking antibiotics willy nilly.
Of course you do, I've no doubt you're very diligent. Because now we know they have serious negative consequences. 40 years ago, however, the people this article is about would have merely been told they were "safe and effective". That's exactly the point I'm making.
You now have to take precaution with a medicine because of new information about its safety that wasn't known at the time it was developed.
Same is true for every other factor mentioned in the report. Human innovation is absolutely suffuce with things we thought were safe and effective at the time, but later turn out to be quite unsafe.
Yet taking this unequivocal fact and applying it to a rational scepticism about new medicines has, since 2020, become 'misinformation'.