Younger generations are facing a higher risk of cancer than their parents

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2024-08-01 08:30

International

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

Each successive generation born during the second half of the 20th century has faced a higher risk of 17 cancers, according to a US study. The team looked at the incidence of 34 cancers and death rate of 25 for people aged 25-84 years from 2000 to 2019 using US cancer registry data to estimate the differences in risk between different birth cohorts. They say 17 of the 34 cancers studied had a higher incidence in younger birth cohorts. 10 of these cancers are linked to obesity, the researchers say, which means increasing obesity could play a role, and both declines and increases in specific cancers appear to mirror trends in smoking and alcohol use. The researchers say we need to do more work to understand the other factors contributing to this increased cancer risk so we can work on them.

Journal/
conference: The Lancet Public Health

Organisation/s: American Cancer Society, USA

Funder: This study was funded by the Intramural Research Department of the American Cancer Society. We thank all cancer registry staff for their diligence in collecting cancer information, without which this research could not have been conducted. We thank Philip S Rosenberg from National Cancer Institute for the helpful discussion on the statistical methods used in the study.

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