United States: A new study by the American Cancer Society, cancer cases in younger generations have been rising steadily at a concerning rate.
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The analysis was taken to consider more than twenty three million US patients who were born between 1920 and 1990 but later were diagnosed with cancer from 2000 to 2019.
The scientists noted that Gen Xers and millennials were found to be at more risk of developing seventeen out of a total of thirty-four cancers, as compared to baby boomers, which includes breast cancer and gastric cancer, among others.
Moreover, it is found that those millennials born in 1990 were more susceptible to developing pancreatic, kidney, or small intestinal cancer than those of baby boomers born in 1955.
Moreover, nine cancers where the incidence rates have been dropping in the older generations are rising in the younger generations, and these include; breast cancer, ovarian cancer, uterine cancer, testicular cancer, and anal cancer, as sciencealert.com reported.
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The cancers are also causing high risks of death. There is this indication that there was a generational exchange of cancer risks in the last 100 years or so.
Scientists believe so because the generations uncovered, those below the age of 50, are increasingly exposed to Carcinogens in early life or young adulthood. These risky exposures, nevertheless, remain undefined and “yet to be elucidated.”
Out of the 17 cancers that have been noted to be on the rise among millennials and Gen Xers, this may partly explain the generation gap.
According to cancer epidemiologist Ahmedin Jemal of ACS, “As the elevated risk in younger generations is carried over as individuals age, an overall increase in cancer burden could occur in the future, halting or reversing decades of progress against the disease,” as sciencealert.com reported.