(VitalNews.org) – We have seen a decline in the amount of cancer deaths in the last few decades. Since 1991, there has been a 33% decline in cancer-related deaths, a difference of 4.1 million deaths.
Although cancer deaths are on the decline, there is an increase in how many people are being diagnosed with cancer, and they’re being diagnosed at an early age. Health experts are saying that the reason why cancer deaths are declining is because of a combination of a decrease in smoking, better treatment, and also targeted therapies that have improved.
There are two particular cancer types that are affecting a younger generation and that is Colon cancer and Breast cancer. Colon cancer is a grave concern as it is the leading cause of death for men 50 and under and the second leading cause for women 50 and under.
A researcher and Oncologist, Dr. Larry Norton, from Memorial Sloan Kettering said, “It’s something that wasn’t represented in statistics yet – that there has been a creep toward younger age of onset of certain common cancers. Colorectal and breast are the dominant ones.”
New cancer diagnoses are rising each and every day and for the first time, the diagnosis number reached 2 million, which equates to more than 5,000 diagnoses every single day.
Health experts are stumped as to why the younger generation has more prevalent kinds of cancer, but they think that much of it has to do with obesity and other unknown environmental factors.
Dr William Dahut of the American Cancer Society said, “I think we’re all grappling with what is the broadly spoken environmental factor which is changing the cancer incidence and mortality amongst the young.”
Health professionals have actually dropped the ages for screening for Colon cancer to 45 to 50 and for Breast cancer to 40 to 50 years old.
There are so many factors that can lead to the younger generation facing a diagnosis of cancer. Some of the factors might include exposure to chemicals in food, exposure to drugs or cannabis, individual genetics and heredity, and causes that are commonly associated with adults who get cancer.
A UCLA Health researcher and gastroenterologist, Dr. Folasade May, said, “There are studies that even show that risk factors like whether or not you were breastfed, whether or not you had antibiotics at a high rate as a child — that these factors might be predicting your chances of getting cancer when you’re an adult.”
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