Women under 50 are almost twice as likely as their male peers to have cancer, according to a new report.
A new report from the American Cancer Society has uncovered a disturbing trend: Young women are nearly twice as likely to be diagnosed with cancer than young men.
The annual report, which was published this week, found that cancer deaths have significantly declined over the past 30 years, and that rates among men have leveled off. But the disease appears to be becoming more prevalent among women, illustrating a shift that’s disturbed researchers.
Here’s a closer look at the data — and the factors that could be contributing to the rise of cancer in young adults.
Cancer rates in young adults
The cancer mortality rate has dropped 34 percent between 1991 to 2022, according to the study published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. But the burden of the disease appears to be shifting: More women ages 50 to 64 are being diagnosed than men, and the cancer rates for women under 50 are now 82 percent higher than for their male peers (up from 51 percent in 2002).
“Continued reductions in cancer mortality because of drops in smoking, better treatment, and earlier detection is certainly great news,” Rebecca Siegel, a senior scientific director for the ACS, said in a release. “However, this progress is tempered by rising incidence in young and middle-aged women, who are often the family caregivers, and a shifting cancer burden from men to women, harkening back to the early 1900s when cancer was more common in women.”
Researchers also highlighted “alarming inequalities” in cancer mortality rates among Native American people, who are two to three times more likely to die from kidney, liver, stomach, and cervical cancers than white people. Black people were also found to be twice as likely to die from prostate, stomach, and uterine cancers.
What types of cancer are increasing among young people?
A global study published in 2023 found that over the past three decades, cases of early-onset cancer — defined as diagnoses in people under 50 — shot up a striking 79 percent. Colorectal cancer, for example, is rising precipitously among men and women in the prime of their lives: Last year, the ACS reported that 20 percent of patients in 2019 were younger than 55, about double the rate in 1995.
Breast cancer is also on the rise in young women. Between 2012 and 2021, the incidence of the disease rose 1.4 percent each year among women under 50, per the ACS. Cancers of the prostate, uterine, stomach, and pancreas are also climbing.
Why are more young adults getting cancer?
Researchers don’t know exactly — and they also haven’t determined why more women are developing cancer. But experts have long pointed to alcohol and tobacco use, and poor sleep as potential factors. The rise in obesity and environmental agents like pollutants and toxic chemicals we may encounter in our water and food could play a role too.
Some of it simply has to do with the fact that more people are getting screened and diagnosed earlier, says Katherine Crew, MD, an oncologist and associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at Columbia University Medical Center.
“We’re offering more patients genetic testing, and when they test positive, are screening those people at a younger age. Women with BRCA-1 or BRCA-2 mutations might start breast MRI screening in their mid-20s or patients with Lynch syndrome might start colonoscopies earlier too,” Dr. Crew tells us. “I think that’s part of what’s driving this.”
That’s why researchers like him, who are trying to get to the bottom of the rise in early-onset cases, are looking at an impressive array of possible culprits. Surveys from Dr. Liang’s study, called the Colorectal Cancer in Adults at Young Onset (CRAYON), ask participants questions like what kinds of jobs they had as teenagers to determine if they could have been exposed to any toxins, if they were breastfed, and even if they were born by C-section. (One recent study found that women born by cesarean were more likely to develop CRC before 50.)
“We have to do more right now and we need answers to be able to figure out how to protect future generations,” he says.
