8 ms·
Cancer under age 50 increased 80% from 1990 to 2019
- chiefalchemist 3y agoHow much of this is from actual increase in the disease, and how much is from earlier and more sensitive detection?
- iknowstuff 3y agoIt compares mortality so
- bsder 3y agoUm, mortality ... basically didn't change? This diagram: https://bmjoncology.bmj.com/content/bmjonc/2/1/e000049/F1.large.jpg?width=800&height=600&carousel=1 https://bmjoncology.bmj.com/content/bmjonc/2/1/e000049/F1.la... Shows about 800K deaths in 1990 vs 1M deaths in 2019. That's 25% at best--or less when adjusted for population growth. And the proportions stayed roughly the same. That would strongly suggest that the increase is mostly detection.
- lumost 3y agoAlso points towards frustratingly limited progress in cancer treatment efficacy.
- bsder 3y agoSadly. However, I think that is about to change. Rapidly. I see biomed as broken into 3 eras much like any technical field--alchemy, science, and then engineering. The invention of PCR in 1984 is when biomed changed from being alchemy to being an actual science. The application of mRNA heralds the start of the era where biomed is switching to having progress from engineering rather than just science and some serendipitous luck. And once something switches to being engineering, it can be accelerated by education and money.
- chiefalchemist 3y agoTrue. However, what might that mean to say the environment? For example, if cancer in humans becomes effectively 100% curable, do we become less attentive to diet, environmental toxins, etc.? I believe you're correct. But I also believe such a shift will likely come witb unintended consequences. What might those be? Note: nuclear fusion is similar. That is, loads of cheap clean energy is certainly a victory but there are also massive geopolitical and financial systems unintended consequences. It's not all rainbows and unicorns
- potatoman22 3y agoThe authors seem to think that cancer is less deadly now, but they also note that increased screening likely increases the prevalence of cancer: Introduction: "Currently, it was reported that the promotion of cancer screening strategies and the exposure to risk factors in early life or young adulthood may increase incidence of early-onset cancer... Furthermore, changes in diet, lifestyle and environment since the turn of the 20th century, resulting in increased rates of obesity, physical inactivity, westernised diets and environmental pollution, may have affected the incidence of early-onset cancer. Additionally, alcohol, smoking and detrimental pregnancy exposures may have also affected the incidence of early-onset cancer" Conclusion: "Our study showed that the global morbidity of early-onset cancer increased from 1990 to 2019, while mortality and DALYs slightly decreased."
- chiefalchemist 3y agoWell earlier detection and improved treatment is going to lower mortality rates. But that still doesn't prove cancer has increased. Note: I personally believe it probably has but such an opinion is not science.
- Solvency 3y ago[flagged]
- streblo 3y agoCitation needed. The paper specifically says: > Dietary risk factors (diet high in red meat, low in fruits, high in sodium and low in milk, etc), alcohol consumption and tobacco use are the main risk factors underlying early-onset cancers.
- silentsea90 3y agoThat is true, but by the time we figure out the right attribution between all of these, we'd be toast.
- brohoolio 3y agoI’m surprised if tobacco utilization has increased during the time period in question.
- maxerickson 3y agoIt hasn't. It may have among younger people though, as a result of increasing incomes in poorer countries.
- loeg 3y agoNot in the US, but maybe elsewhere.
- tomtheelder 3y agoLow in milk??
- notamy 3y agoI wonder if it's another way of saying "poor nutrition"
- Nux 3y ago
- iLoveOncall 3y agoThey seem to compare absolute numbers of cancer without mentioning the fact that the world population grew 50% since 1990.
- mianos 3y agoI think not: "the age-standardised rate (ASR)/100k population,"
- iLoveOncall 3y ago> In 2019, the incidence number of early-onset cancer was 3.26 million, a 79.1% increase from 1990 They used the rate by 100K in most other figures but the one the title refers to doesn't.
- mianos 3y agoFair call, I didn't see that one. That's a definite fail by the editors.
- viburnum 3y agoKids nowadays are drowning in plastic stuffies, which I assume are made of toxic waste. No joke, iirc they off gas enough to pick up on household air quality sensors.
- arriu 3y agoInteresting, where can I read more?
- MrVandemar 3y agoTry (best title ever) “Slow Death by Rubber Duck” by Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie. Excellent book, although they frame their enquiry a little too much like “Supersize Me” and I'm not sure it was the best way.
- anjel 3y agoThe subtitle "The Secret Danger of Everyday Things" really ties the room together.
- barbazoo 3y agoWhat kind of toxin is in toys nowadays?
- MrVandemar 3y agoNone. A “toxin” is a naturally occuring poison, such as snake venom. The word you're looking for is the umbrella term “toxicant”. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxicant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxicant But, pendantry aside, pretty sure a lot of those plastic toys, especially the sort of rubbery squishy ones, are probably loaded with pthalates and other exotic and interesting things.
- gremlinunderway 3y agothis is pretty pedantic alright. For better or worse and as much as lots of people wanted to push back against it, you're just going to have to accept that "toxin" has become a general term now no longer tied to just naturally occurring poisons. Words evolve, they change with use. It's like the people dying on that pedantry hill over "literally" being now used in slang to just mean "a lot / really significantly" rather than "how something appears in literature". I'm sure there were people equally complaining about the death of the English subjunctive verb [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_subjunctive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_subjunctive
- oldpersonintx 3y ago[dead]
- mav3ri3k 3y agoI read through the article. Let me share a small story. I recently completed course for Global Warming in College. I would say my instructor was a quite good. He gave the vibe more of a person in industry who taught than a teacher who published papers. Naturally in course of Global Warming we had figures about how much the globe is warming. We have already raised average temperature by few degree. Current goal of global climate organization is to limit any further increase to 1.5 C and at max, at most dire 2 C. Changes to climate are already somewhat irreversible. So this figure of 1.5 is very sensitive and important. Now this is all good but who decides these numbers ? Who is going to take initiative to meet goals ? Who's fault it was to reach these numbers ? Moral: These are very loaded figures. Enough to make small naive children make protests and the world to notice. The numbers are very diluted based on agenda. Cancer patients might have increased, seems very plausible. But did the study account population increase or simply number of people reporting ? I don't think so. We all want to make world a better place but take these numbers with a grain of salt.
- greenthrow 3y agoOf course the study is looking at cases per N people. What a silly question, let alone to assume they didn't. HN is getting worse every day.
- evrydayhustling 3y agoWait - your first paragraph has nothing to do with your moral. What's "diluted"? It seems like you want to say "be skeptical about numbers.". Fine. But what does that have to do with the course?
- Wolfenstein98k 3y agoThe course taught them just how much they should be sceptical of numbers
- mav3ri3k 3y agoMy entire post very was poorly structured. Properly conveying experiences is hard in text, my bad. Just be cautious when you see big scary numbers.
- atleastoptimal 3y agoAccording to this graph in the article, while age-adjusted incidence rate of cancers increased marginally from 1990 to 2019, age-adjusted death rate for both genders decreased dramatically https://bmjoncology.bmj.com/content/bmjonc/2/1/e000049/F5.large.jpg https://bmjoncology.bmj.com/content/bmjonc/2/1/e000049/F5.la...
- SoylentOrange 3y agoLikely due to better treatments available over the past 30 years.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- twothreeone 3y agoFigure 3 shows incident rate changes in percent by country, it seems there are stark increases in South American and African countries and mainly declining incident rates in western countries. Intuitively, I would associate increases in those regions with increased access to medical care there - so, overall a good thing?
- raincole 3y agoIntuitively I thought it was about the developing countries are getting more industrialized and polluted. But perhaps both.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoMore doctors to know that people aren’t just dropping dead from mysterious reasons. And more industrialization to have more cancer. I would bet more on the former than the latter.
- BirAdam 3y agoEven with that, cancers metabolize sugars. The more sugars you put into your body, the faster and larger cancer cells can get. Add to this that sugars are inflammatory, and this heightens cancer risks. Add to both of those factors and increase in pollution and it’s just a perfect storm.
- nradov 3y agoYou are probably referring to the Warburg effect. While there is a clear link between obesity and cancer, cutting sugar intake doesn't appear to be an effective cancer treatment. (It's still generally a good idea for other reasons, though.) https://www.mskcc.org/news/no-sugar-no-cancer-look-evidence https://www.mskcc.org/news/no-sugar-no-cancer-look-evidence
- abtinf 3y agoYou think the undeveloped world has cleaner water and food than the industrialized world?
- loeg 3y agoPreviously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37086982 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37086982 , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37125047 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37125047
- bamboozled 3y agoI read an article on here that we’ve polluted the environment so badly now that rain water is unsafe to drink basically anywhere it falls. Rainwater…[1] I get it PFAs might not cause cancer but we’re pushing things to some pretty crazy extreme when it comes to pollution. Microplastics in the clouds ? I really hope these things aren’t related because it’s going to fucking suck if they are. Can’t just put microplastics away. I’m personally in the camp that thinks we should just be doing everything we can to minimise all types of pollution because we just cannot really predict what the effects will be. Even if we think something is benign. I might be an extremist but I’m even worried about tyre dust. And even those blue plastic tarps people love to let rot in the sun and dissolve everywhere. What we’re doing isn’t good, I just think we struggle to admit to ourselves because it’s quite horrific. [1] https://phys.org/news/2022-08-rainwater-unsafe-due-chemicals.html https://phys.org/news/2022-08-rainwater-unsafe-due-chemicals...
- nswest23 3y agodid anyone read the conclusion? > with notable variances in mortality and DALYs between areas, countries, sex and cancer types. Encouraging a healthy lifestyle could reduce early-onset cancer disease burden. and... > Dietary risk factors (diet high in red meat, low in fruits, high in sodium and low in milk, etc), alcohol consumption and tobacco use are the main risk factors underlying early-onset cancers. seems to indicate that the authors of this article were not pointing the finger at environmental causes.
- airstrike 3y ago> I’m personally in the camp that thinks we should just be doing everything we can to minimise all types of pollution because we just cannot really predict what the effects will be. Even if we think something is benign. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle
- bamboozled 3y agoThanks for sharing. What worries me is this is always going to be about a quick buck vs long term risk. We do not have the collective wisdom to stop.
- kundi 3y agoHere are there someone from the origin of western-cultivated formulas will post an equation to which many “westerners” (for a lack of better word) will respond with surprise or rejection, mostly citing how the equation used the wrong constants or how the medicine improved. The “western” medicine still neglects TCM and its learnings, primarily focusing on doctrine and enforced lessons of medicine (if we may call it so), but more appropriately post-medicine which is or can be more or less effective after the disease has developed to a visible to sensory state. It will take some time (or more given the current condition in which the westerns are more concerned in shipping and producing the weapons than raising the vibration of their planetary bodies) to understand that post-condition-medicione is negligible against preventive medicine and if they will want to preserve health in their human bodies, something radical will need to be changed (which will be a challenge for their established trajectory of thought but the appropriate holistic approach to health and medicine of the future).
- primax 3y agoIf anything in TCM worked and wasn't risky, what would stop big pharma putting it in a pill or lotion? Alternative medicine that works becomes medicine.
- t0bia_s 3y agoYou cannot compete in society where alternative medicine is punished and you don't even have a freedom of choice to pick treatment because you are forced to give your money (taxes in EU) to companies that you wouldn't pay otherwise. I'm not against western medicine, I'm just missing more focus on causes of illnes and explanations, not just solving consequences.
- croemer 3y agoGarbage, read the responses, here's one: > Zhao et al report 79% increase in actual number of cases from 1990 to 2019, but this figure can be misleading, as it does not take account of population growth. The authors therefore also report estimated annual percent change (EAPC) of the incidence rates of various cancers. However, it is unfortunate that the press has largely focused on the overall number rather than the per capita risk of cancer, giving the impression that we are facing an epidemic of cancer in young individuals. https://bmjoncology.bmj.com/content/2/1/e000049.responses https://bmjoncology.bmj.com/content/2/1/e000049.responses The headline figure of 79% does not account at all for population increase. This is bad science (communication). > In 2019, the incidence number of early-onset cancer was 3.26 million, a 79.1% increase from 1990 (figure 1A,B). Incidence number simply counts cancers. Of course there are more cancers given world population increase. This should never be in a study headline.
- paulpauper 3y agoAlso, better detection of early cancers. Also in the past, cancer deaths may have been misattributed as something else.
- EasyMark 3y agoScanning tech has gotten much much better in the past 20 years along with software that helps doctors recognize tumors and other abnormalities with even older tech.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y agoThank you very much - was skeptical of the headline, looking through the comments to find an explanation, so thank you for delivering. Another important quote from your source: > However, focusing on absolute case numbers does not take into account that the global population in the age group 15-49 increased by 45% and in the age group 40-49 (where most incident cases have occurred) by 86% during the study period (see Table S2). Both, age specific and age standardized rates show no increase in incidence in incidence and mortality for the period 1995 to 2020 (Figure 5). Age standardized mortality declined substantially during the study period.
- bigfryo 3y agoI am betting on a decrease in the amount of sun exposure during childhood being the cause.. it's known that the more basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas an adult has, the healthier they are in general.. and the incidence of those non serious cancers is generally linked to sun exposure in childhood
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dukeofdoom 3y agoThings get into your body primary through Ingestion. If its caused by something we eat, it could very well be things added into your food, like preservatives. I just bought some mixed nuts. I read the ingredient list, there's canola oil on them. Like why? It could be other things that effect hormones. For example the pill, that is taken by so many people, or just people over consuming sugar, and getting fatter.
- dukeofdoom 3y agoAmerican's are on more and more pharmaceuticals, and yet their health and life expectancy is declining. People are way too lax about what they put into their body, and trusting. Taking pills for things that are often lifestyle related. Trying to mask the symptoms with pharmaceuticals and not trying to fix the cause...like obesity, and excessive alcohol. This is one of the reasons I did not take the covid jab. I was worried it would give me cancer. I was okay with getting fired. I wouldn't get a tattoo either for same reason.
- t0bia_s 3y agoYou probably make wise choice. Currently in EU mortality of 15-44y is rising after 2021. https://euromomo.eu https://euromomo.eu
- arctac 3y ago"You are what you eat" and when you eat in the US I would start asking questions Monsanto and Bayer for a start.
- Gnarl 3y agoAs usual, no mention of pulse-modulated RF as a ubiquitous and ever increasing biological stressor. Its been shown and replicated how RF can potentiate effects of chemical carcinogens (Tillmann 2010, Lerchl 2015). Just an FYI. Refs: https://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/09553001003734501 https://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/09553001003734... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006291X15003988 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00062...