Why more cancer is being diagnosed in younger people – and how lifestyle changes reduce the risk

While deaths from cancer are falling around the world the number of under-50s being diagnosed with cancer, especially colorectal cancer, is rising significantly

Consuming high-sugar and ultra-processed foods, and sedentary lifestyles, put under-50s at especially high risk. Experts explain how to lower the risks

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Diagnoses of cancer – especially colorectal cancer – are increasing among under-50s, even as global cancer deaths decrease. Simple lifestyle and diet changes - more exercise, fewer sugary drinks, less ultra-processed food - can offset that increased risk. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 4:15am, 27 Jan 2024Updated: 8:34am, 27 Jan 2024

This is the good news about cancer: broadly, cancer deaths continue to fall. A reduction in smoking, better treatments, regular screening and quicker diagnoses have resulted in fewer deaths in the past 30 years – in the case of the United States almost 4 million fewer.

This is the bad news: more young people are being diagnosed with cancer. In fact, the risk of developing certain cancers when you’re young has increased for every generation since the 1950s.

The number of under-50s worldwide being diagnosed with cancer has risen by nearly 80 per cent in the space of 30 years, according to a recent and extensive study, published in the journal BMJ Oncology, by scientists from China’s Zhejiang University, Harvard University in the United States, and Edinburgh University in the UK.

Global cases of early onset cancer increased from under 2 million in 1990 to over 3 million in 2019, while deaths among people in their 30s and 40s from cancer grew by 27 per cent. More than a million under-50s die of cancer every year, according to the research.

Chadwick Boseman in a still from “Black Panther”. The actor died from colon cancer aged 43. Photo: Marvel Studios

Yet another study noted that people born in the early 1990s bear four times the risk of developing rectal cancer as people born 40 years earlier. The study attributed this to higher sugar consumption, specifically sweetened drinks.

In August 2020 the actor Chadwick Boseman, T’Challa in the movie Black Panther and the recipient of many accolades, including two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and an Academy Award nomination, died of colon cancer; he was just 43. He had contracted the illness four years earlier.