People who make up Generation X and millennials in the United States have a higher risk of developing 17 types of cancer, including breast, pancreatic and gastric cancer, compared to older age groupssuggests a study published in The Lancet Public Health.
Research led by the American Cancer Society (ACS) indicates that Mortality trends also increased along with the incidence of cancers of the liver (in women only), uterine corpus, gallbladder, testicles, and colorectum.
These results add to “the growing evidence of increased risk of cancer in women post-baby boom generations“,” said study senior author Hyuna Sung of the ACS.
Furthermore, they extend previous findings on early-onset colorectal cancer and some associated with obesity to cover a broader range of cancer types.
The analysis included incidence data of 23.6 million patients diagnosed of 34 types of cancer and mortality figures for 7.3 million people from 25 types of cancer. Participants were between 25 and 84 years old and the information was collected between January 2000 and December 2019.
Groups of people classified by their year of birth (birth cohorts) share unique social, economic, political and climatic environments, which affect their exposure to risk factors of cancer during their crucial developmental years.
Researchers identified cancer trends associated with birth years, but they still don’t have “a clear explanation” why these rates are increasing,” Sung added.
Generation X includes those born between 1965 and 1981, while The millennial period is considered to be the period from 1982 to 1994.
To compare cancer rates between generations, they calculated cohort-specific incidence and mortality rates, adjusted for the effect of age and periodby year of birth, separated by five-year intervals, from 1920 to 1990.
The results indicate, among other things, that the incidence rate was approximately two to three times higher in the 1990 birth cohort than in the 1955 birth cohort for pancreatic cancers, kidney and small intestinein men and women; and for liver cancer in women.
Among the different types of cancer, the incidence rate in the 1990 birth cohort ranged from 12 percent for ovarian cancer to 169 percent for the upper uterus at the rate of the birth cohort with the lowest incidence rate.
Mortality rates increased in successively younger birth cohorts along with incidence rates of liver cancer (women only), uterus, gallbladder, testicles and colorectal.
Rising cancer rates among this younger group of people indicate generational changes in cancer risk and It often serves as an early indicator of the future burden of cancer in the country.
Without effective population-level interventions, and given that the elevated risk in younger generations carries over as people age, “there could be an overall increase in the cancer burden in the future, halting or reversing decades of progress against the disease“, stressed Ahmedin Jemal, another signatory.
The data highlights, the expert added, “the critical need to identify and address underlying risk factors in Gen X and Millennial populations to inform prevention strategies”.
