Today's 40-60-year-olds develop more cancers than their parents and grandparents: new study provides further evidence. Among the possible causes: premature aging and incorrect lifestyle.
Generation X youth PHOTO: Pixabay
The prognosis for people in their 40s is bleak, and for those in their 50s and 60s it is even bleaker. Those born between 1965 and 1980, the so-called Generation X, are approaching the age when they are most likely to develop cancer, and the statistics do not speak in their favor: they seem to be more likely to develop cancer than their parents (baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964), than their grandparents and than all generations born between 1908 and 1964. And if this trend continues, the millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) could do it even worse, writes Corriere. it.
A new alarm signal is raised by a study published in the journal JAMA Network Open by American epidemiologists at the National Cancer Institute in Rockville, Maryland.
It is not the first time that American experts emphasize this problem: various studies have reached the same conclusions: cancer cases before the age of 50 are increasing in various countries, and if in the US the numbers are “eloquent”, and in Italy the first signs are already evident. The starting point of the latest study is a very specific question: Is the incidence of cancer increasing or decreasing in different American generations?
“You could hope that things get better as the years go by, especially in terms of health, life expectancy and cancer diagnosis.”comments Philip S. Rosenberg, first author of the new study published in JAMA, but the numbers tell us that, unfortunately, this is not the case.
After collecting data from 3.8 million people diagnosed with cancer, comparing the incidence between generations and making statistical projections for those born in Generation X at age 60, the study's findings show an increase in the number of cancer cases compared with their predecessors.
Some cancers increase, others decrease
Compared to their boomer parents, Gen X women are much more likely to develop thyroid, kidney, colon and rectal, uterine, pancreatic, ovarian, as well as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and leukemia. However, the incidence of lung cancer and cervical cancer is decreasing.
Conversely, in the male sex, the rate of thyroid, kidney, prostate, colon and rectal neoplasms increases, and that of lung, liver, gall bladder and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma decreases.
“According to the most recent estimates, one Italian in three will get cancer during his life, and the cases in our country are increasing”. confirms Saverio Cinieri, president of Fondazione Aiom, the Italian Association of Medical Oncology (Aiom).
“In 2023, there will be 395,000, and the increase, given that these diseases are more common after the age of 65, seems to be mainly related to the general aging of the population. Aging is a determining factor in the emergence of a neoplasm: as time passes, in fact, the effects of different carcinogenic factors accumulate, and the body's ability to repair DNA mutations that favor the formation of tumors is diminished.”
And recent research in the US has hypothesized premature aging as a possible explanation for the rise in cancer among young people.
“More than 90% of cancers registered in Italy concern citizens over 50”explains Franco Perrone, national president of Aiom.
According to the data collected so far, environmental pollution (especially air pollution), which includes various carcinogenic substances from human activities (motor traffic, industry, domestic heating) or from natural sources (ionizing radiation, ultraviolet rays), is responsible for 5 % of cancer cases. This proportion reaches 10% in the most polluted areas and can be even higher the worse the environmental conditions in which we live.
