2024-01-13 04:26:00
Wake up call: cancer in young people is a health emergency. The alarming trend that should be stopped. The heaviest death toll is for cancers of the breast, trachea, lung, intestine and stomach
Global trends in incidence, death, burden and risk factors of early-onset cancer from 1990 to 2019. This is the name of the research published in the prestigious health journal British Medical Journal which supports, data in hand, that from 1990 to 2019, early-onset cancer increased by 79%, i.e. from 1.8 million cases to just over 3 million in 2019. A shocking number. In the same period of time, the number of deaths from cancer, early onset, increased by 27.7%.
“Cancers of the breast, trachea, bronchi, lungs, brain stomach and colorectal early onset showed the highest mortality in 2019″, explain the researchers of the international team that gave rise to the study, one of the first of its kind, “Globally, the incidence rates of nasopharyngeal and prostate cancer early-onset liver cancer showed the fastest increasing trend, while early-onset liver cancer showed the steepest decrease.”
Projections also indicate that the global number of incidence and deaths from early-onset cancer is expected to grow by 31% and 21% respectively in 2030. So the picture will tend to get worse and will especially concern those who were affected at a young age.
We are talking about tumors that in the past have always affected older age groups. But the increase spans different genders, ethnic groups and body organs, has invaded young people’s blood and bone marrow, gastrointestinal tracts and their reproductive organs, and varies from organ to organ and from continent to continent. For example, the incidence of breast cancer in Americans aged 15 to 39 has increased by more than 17% over a 19-year period. Myeloma rates have increased by more than 30%. Colorectal cancer by almost 45%.
The reasons remain to be explored even if there are significant traces to understand possible consequences, mainly due to the type of life and modern consumption.
Dietary risk factors such as diet high in red meat, low in fruit, high in sodium and low in milkalcohol consumption and tobacco use are the main risk factors underlying early-onset cancers.
The main suspect reported by researchers it’s obesity or rather the contribution of obesity is a determining factor, given that it has been constantly increasing since the 1960s. Many cancers such as breast and uterine cancer have become widespread in childhood and adolescenceas well as colorectal cancer and many others affecting the gastrointestinal tract are associated with this widespread condition.
For researchers, a series of interrelated factors such as Westernized diets, the spread of sugary drinks, red and processed meat, sedentary lifestyles, decline in physical activity, environmental pollution, metabolic conditions such as type 2 diabetes contributed to the disaster.
Even the exaggerated widespread use of CT scans and X-rays, which expose patients to low levels of cancer-causing radiation, may have contributed, especially in some workers who use it continuously, for tumors affecting the blood and bone marrow. Regarding the increase in cancer ai testicles, however, is associated with the more widespread use of cannabis consumption, the probable main culprit.
The incidence of environmental risk factors, the transformation of diets and the characteristics of modern Western life have meant that young people are especially affected and, having a longer life potential, may have relapses. But that said, despite often late diagnoses, adolescents and young adults are more likely to survive the initial cancer diagnosis than older adults: over 85% survive to reach the five-year mark, compared to 74% among 40 to 64 year olds, and among 40 to 64 year olds, less than 62% of people aged 65 and older.
The novelty of the data comes into the hands of researchers today as most previous studies focused on regional and national variations in cancer incidence and death at all ages, and only a small number of studies examined global epidemiology and disease burden of early-onset tumors.
Knowing all this, it becomes important today to raise awareness about cancer in younger age groups, both among the young people themselves and among their doctors, in order to reverse the trend with life, nutrition, environmental and general behaviors in order to prevent risk factors and treat the onset of diseases in advance, also thinking about another development model.
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