Gen Xers Face Higher Cancer Risks

 

Higher cancer Risk 

Gen Xers Face Higher Cancer Risks Than Boomers 

Younger generations are getting hit harder than their predecessors by 17 types of cancer  

Study--17 Cancers on the Rise in Younger Generations   

According to a study published in The Lancet Public Health, researchers found that compared with older generations, Generation X and millennials in the world have a higher risk of developing these cancers:   

• Colorectum
• Uterine corpus
• Gallbladder
• Kidney and renal pelvis
• Pancreas
• Myeloma
• Noncardia gastric, a type of stomach cancer
• Leukemia
• Testis
• Cardia gastric, a type of stomach cancer
• Small intestine
• Estrogen receptor-positive breast
• Ovary
• Liver (in women)
• Non-HPV-associated oral and pharynx (in women)
• Anus (in men)
• Kaposi sarcoma, a type of blood cancer (in men)

Strikingly, the researchers, led by a team from the American Cancer Society, found that adults born around 1990 are two to three times more likely to develop pancreatic, kidney, liver (in women) and small intestinal cancers than adults born around 1955. Younger adults are also seeing an increase in mortality for five different types of cancer, including liver (in women), uterine, gallbladder, testicular and colorectal cancers, the study found.

What does this have to do with cancer? According to the National Cancer Institute, there is “strong evidence” that higher levels of physical activity are linked to lower cancer risks. 

The CDC has linked 13 types of cancer to obesity:

• Breast cancer (in women)
• Colon and rectal cancer
• Endometrial cancer (also called uterine cancer)
• Esophagus cancer
• Gallbladder cancer
• Stomach cancer
• Kidney cancer
• Liver cancer
• Ovarian cancer
• Pancreatic cancer
• Thyroid cancer
• Meningioma (a type of brain cancer)
• Multiple myeloma

Being overweight may increase the risk for several others, including non-Hodgkin lymphoma; mouth, throat and voice box cancer; and aggressive forms of prostate cancer, the American Cancer Society says.

Graphic cancer 

Hodgkin lymphoma; mouth, throat and voice box cancer;

Trends in cancer incidence in young generations or young adults (age <50 years) largely reflect increased exposure to carcinogenic factors during early life or young adulthood compared with previous generations,7 and foreshadow futur

e disease burden as these young cohorts carry their increased risk into older age, when cancers most frequently occur.7 To quantify cancer risk among younger generations of adults compared with their older counterparts, we aimed to examine trends in incidence rates of 34 cancers and mortality rates of 25 cancers for 2000 to 2019 by birth cohort spanning from 1920 to 1990 .

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