People born between 1965 and 1980 are more likely to develop a form of cancer compared to previous generations, recent studies show. The good news is related, instead, to the possibility of detecting cancers in their early stages and treating them.
The incidence of cancers is increasing, the arsenal to fight the disease is also increasing PHOTO: archive
Experts point out, following multiple studies, that the data indicate an increase in the incidence of cancer in people under 50, in various countries. In one of the studies, published in the journal JAMA Network Open by American epidemiologists from the National Cancer Institute in Rockville, Maryland, after correlating data collected from 3.8 million people diagnosed with cancer, they compared the incidence between generations and statistical projections were made for those born in generation X at the age of 60, an increase in the number of cancer cases was found compared to their predecessors.
When it comes to cancers, data shows that Gen X women, for example, are more likely to develop thyroid, kidney, colon and rectal, uterine, pancreatic, ovarian, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and leukemia , compared to boomer parents. For them, the risk of developing lung cancer and cervical cancer is lower. Among Gen X men, the incidence of thyroid, kidney, prostate, colon, and rectal cancers is increasing, while the rate of lung, liver, gallbladder, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is decreasing.
A possible explanation for what is happening to the people of generation X, and the trend, most likely, according to doctors, will also be preserved in the case of generations born after 1980, is premature aging. This led to an increase in the number of cancers in young patients.
Another challenge is the general aging of the population, which will also contribute to the increase in the number of cancer cases, given that these conditions are even more common after the age of 65.
Statistics also say that pollution, especially air pollution, is responsible for 5% of cancers. The figures would even reach 10% in the most populated areas.
“Target treatments have appeared. You hit the target exactly, you kill the cancer cell exactly”
The good news, says Dr. Marius Căprar, primary physician for recovery, physical medicine and balneology, is that research is evolving in turn, and the neoplasm is no longer regarded as a fatal diagnosis today.
“In America, the oncological disease, the neoplasm, is no longer regarded as a fatal disease, which gives you great anxiety. It is treated
target treatments appeared. You hit the target exactly, you kill the cancer cell exactly and the patient can reintegrate socio-professionally”the doctor explains.
Until all countries get there, currently treated oncology patients need medical recovery, and this segment is in great suffering in Romania.
“The problem is that all of them, almost all of them, remain with polyneuropathy problems after cytostatics, psychosomatic problems, even some very serious psychological elements. Their recovery requires a multidisciplinary approach and it has not developed at all here. In Romania, there is not even a section with an oncological rehabilitation profile. Neither in the state nor private system”draws the attention of Dr. Căprar.
And even if things are moving slowly in Romania, the progress made worldwide in the oncology field will eventually reach us as well.
Steps are already being taken in the area of screening, for example.
“Nota bene is that there are screening methods, we have medical screening methods in which we can detect a cancer from an early stage, from the stage where it can be treated much more easily, so that it does not reach a stage of oncological surgery and sometimes not even chemotherapy”, adds the doctor. Such a device, which is currently going through the patent procedure, would arrive in Oradea not long from now. It is an ultrasound-like machine that uses ultrasound-based technology and will enable breast cancer screening. The device can be easily transported and installed, and has the advantage that in five minutes it can give an answer about the nature of a lump, without the risks of radiation that patients who are recommended for mammography are subjected to today.
In order for patients to benefit from these advanced screening methods, the doctor believes, the caravans could be helpful, given that very few Romanians do routine checks.
“The only solution would be to re-introduce these caravans, which reach the localities as they did when they were detecting TB with the Rx caravan”, says the doctor.
Risk factors we could control but don’t
Studies also link the increasing incidence of cancers to the different lifestyles we lead compared to our parents and grandparents. Although it would be in our power to change some of the things that lead us not only to cancers, but also to other serious diseases, because other serious conditions also manifest themselves at younger and younger ages, as doctors warn, we don’t do it.
We consume, says the doctor, excessively processed foods, vegetable products treated with pesticides and insecticides, we live in polluted environments, our children no longer eat home-produced food because we accustom them to the taste of supermarket food, etc.
“We won’t be able to fight the change in eating habits, environmental factors, not to mention stress and online life, because they don’t socialize, they are in a parallel universe. All this certainly leads to an increase in the incidence of cancers on all sides, from thyroid, to pancreatic, intestinal, renal, prostatic. There are multiple explanations why generation X is so sensitive, but know that this generation is not only so sensitive in oncological pathology, but also in the vascular one. We are dealing with young patients with stroke, so-called crypto-genetic accidents, you can’t find their cause”adds doctor Marius Căprar.
The process of degradation, unfortunately, will continue, the doctor believes, because to the already listed causes there are also others that we do not make any effort to combat.
“In order to have a healthy mind and body, apart from a healthy diet, you need an appropriate family climate – there is not much anymore, information as much as possible, at the level of reading a book, not online, only with images and things that they parasitize and become addicted to the tablet that hypotrophies their brains. And the lack of movement, the lack of physical exercise that would give them at least adequate musculo-ligamentary and muscular health. Plus obesity in children, which is an alarming phenomenon”, adds Dr. Căprar.
