In the last few decades, the number of cancer deaths has gone down. The number of deaths from cancer has gone down by 33% since 1991, which is 4.1 million deaths less.
Though the number of cancer deaths is going down, more people are being diagnosed with it, and they are being detected at younger ages. Cancer deaths are going down, according to health experts. This is because fewer people are smoking, treatment is getting better, and targeted medicines are getting better.
Colon cancer and breast cancer are the two types of cancer that are most common among young people. Colon cancer is very dangerous because it is the main reason men under 50 die and the second main reason women under 50 die.
Dr. Larry Norton, an oncologist and researcher at Memorial Sloan Kettering, said, “It’s something that wasn’t shown in the statistics yet: that the age at which some common cancers start has been creeping down.” Most of them are colorectal and breast.
Every day, more and more people are being diagnosed with cancer. Last year, 2 million people were diagnosed, which is more than 5,000 new cases every day.
Many types of cancer are more common in younger people, but health experts don’t know why. They think that fat and other unknown environmental factors play a big role.
“I think we’re all trying to figure out what is the broad environmental factor that is changing the cancer incidence and mortality among the young,” said Dr. William Dahut of the American Cancer Society.
Screening for colon cancer is now done on people 45 to 50 years old, and screening for breast cancer is now done on people 40 to 50 years old.
There are a lot of things that can cause young people to be diagnosed with cancer. Some of the things that could cause cancer in adults are eating foods that contain chemicals, using drugs or weed, having certain genes, and other things that are common in adults who get cancer.
Dr. Folasade May, a gastroenterologist and researcher at UCLA Health, said, “Some studies even show that risk factors, like whether or not you were breastfed or whether or not you took a lot of antibiotics as a child, might be able to tell you how likely you are to get cancer as an adult.”
