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Colon cancer now leading cause of cancer deaths under 50 in US
- kvgr 7mo agoThere is going to be some big AHA moment tied so couple food practices. Like washing chicken in chlorine or something. I wonder how are the stats in other developed countries. The title says US.
- zvqcMMV6Zcr 7mo agoMy bet is on low-fiber diet and people spending half hour playing with phone instead of getting up from toilet.
- askonomm 7mo agoWhy would me sitting down cause colon cancer?
- nativeit 7mo agoBecause anything that allows another person to look down on you and feel superior must therefore be true and moral.
- toraway 7mo agoNot saying it’s actually linked to cancer but it definitely does increase the risk of hemorrhoids, rectal prolapse and bleeding from straining. Which could mean chronic stress at a cellular level repairing damage over the long term.
- leetrout 7mo agoI had no clue this was a thing. Thanks for sharing your thought... I think it's a combination of our pesticide usage and general food processing but like a sibling said these are educated guesses.
- imglorp 7mo agoMy money is on massive overexposure to high fructose corn syrup in the Western diet. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9170474/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9170474/
- damnesian 7mo agolack of fiber is a biggie too. Foods too highly processed. too many oils.
- staticassertion 7mo agoThis is my personal bet. It's just low fiber diets.
- boringg 7mo agoIt can't just be low fiber diets - there has to be some other exposures involved.
- staticassertion 7mo agoWhy?
- Jerrrrrrrry 7mo agoApt username from a person suggesting that non edible fiber is the nutrient causing illness and thats the presupposition we should argue against. Why would more fiber help?
- staticassertion 7mo agoUh, what? I have not made a presuppositional argument (I made no argument at all...). I made a statement about my epistemic state - ie: that I would "bet" on low fiber being the major contributor to colon cancer rates. Someone then asserted that it can't be that, and I asked "why?". > Why would more fiber help? Because there is an incredible amount of research into high fiber diets being good for your gut, including reduced colon cancer rates. This is the consensus of various organizations such as WHO - high fiber diets have lower risks of colon cancer.
- taeric 7mo agoThe trend has been down, even for this cancer. Such that I agree there were probably some big AHA moments. But I assert they almost certainly happened 50 years ago. My expectation is that it is less that there has been a growing trend of this cancer getting worse, and far more that we have gotten better at many other cancers. That is, overall, this is good news on progress. Not a scare headline.
- doubled112 7mo agoI grew up in a fairly industrial area with lots of trades people around me. From my anecdata, I'd suspect you're right. We know more about some cancers and the causes and they are easier to prevent. The choices, personal or otherwise, I have seen can't be good for your body, and some you're simply not allowed to make anymore. Ironically, sitting on this laptop typing this might be as bad, but win some/lose some. But some obvious examples? Ever dip a shirt in benzene because it cools you down? Apparently it feels like Vicks, but doesn't leave that sticky feeling behind. A good portion drank 6+ beers a day. I know they must have eaten, but some I never saw consume food. At all. Some smoked a pack or two of cigarettes a day. Asbestos was in everything. There was no ventilation/filtration for welders, painters, woodworkers, etc. If you could open the shop door it was a good day.
- vharuck 7mo agoThe trend has been upwards for invasive colorectal cancer among US residents under 50: https://seer.cancer.gov/statistics-network/explorer/application.html?site=20&data_type=1&graph_type=2&compareBy=age_range&chk_age_range_9=9&rate_type=2&sex=1&race=1&stage=101&advopt_precision=1&advopt_show_ci=on https://seer.cancer.gov/statistics-network/explorer/applicat...
- taeric 7mo agoIt has ticked up 1-2 per 100k over the past few decades for that group. Zoom the chart out, and you would probably be excused for assuming it is flat with some noise. By all means, we should study this more. But the way folks are talking about this is a touch nuts.
- hombre_fatal 7mo ago> An estimated 95% of American adults and children fail to meet daily fiber recommendations, with intake often falling below 10 grams per 1,000 calories consumed It's tempting to focus on some magic bad ingredient/practice to explain our bad health (like seed oils), but we don't exercise, we eat directly against dietary guidelines, and we eat foods that we know are bad for us. Now add on to that the social media grifters and industry advocates who tell you that eating poorly is good for you. I don't blame individuals just trying to live their life though. This is how we've let our whole food environment set up shop.
- NotGMan 7mo agoFocusing on fiber while leaving out glyphosate, sugar etc... is myopic.
- hombre_fatal 7mo agoI don't think I need to enumerate every way our diets are bad in an HN comment, do I? You didn't even want to do it and you're the one gunning for it. But processed meat consumption would be another good example of where we happily eat against dietary guidelines despite its link with colorectal cancer.
- toraway 7mo agoThat seems like wishful thinking, IMO. Seems more likely we will find it’s due a complex constellation of genetics, diet, lifestyle factors like exercise, environmental exposure, etc associated eith a modern sedentary lifestyle with no clear smoking gun or single preventative intervention. It sort of reminds me of when Lesswrong was fixated on a hypothesis that lithium levels in the water supply was the cause of the obesity epidemic. There was a lot of enthusiasm for the idea at the time, and somewhat understandably as it would have been a single variable that could be tweaked for massive societal benefits. But there wasn’t really any credible evidence to support it. Trying to reduce the complexity of human biology and lifestyle to single cause/effect relationship is an easy and tempting trap to fall into to explain unknowns in medicine.
- ankraft 7mo agohttps://archive.ph/UUKZ1 https://archive.ph/UUKZ1
- everdrive 7mo agoQuite scary since we don't know what causes it. I know there are some intelligent guesses, but my understanding is that we don't have any hard proof.
- ifwinterco 7mo agoYep, there is something going on here (some environment toxin that most/all of us are exposed to), but we don't know what it is
- Pxtl 7mo agoHah, I've counted 10+ different intelligent(?) guesses in the replies.
- Kye 7mo agoI lean toward "people got better at not dying from everything else." It's plausible to me that it just enabled existing factors to unfold on the time scales they unfold on for more people. My handy heuristic for headlines like this: Is it a scary new trend that means something or did other factors suppressing its natural emergence decline? Or is it a matter of observation? A recent real-world example was the detection of two different objects entering the solar system. The naive speculation was "they came on the same plane, so they must be alien!" But the reality is more mundane: the new detection method that found them, while flexible, started by looking at that plane. So of course both objects it detected were on that plane.
- everdrive 7mo ago>I lean toward "people got better at not dying from everything else." Unfortunately, that doesn't seem the be the case here, and the article goes into this. Deaths due to colorectal cancer under 50 simply used to be incredibly uncommon. Younger people were simply not screened for it. The rise is not solely relative to other forms of death, but in absolute terms has increased.
- 7mo ago
- sublinear 7mo agoMost people don't eat enough fiber, eat way too much processed junk, and have vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Yet still the overall risk for colon cancer is surprisingly low and takes a long time to develop for everyone but the unluckiest. Earlier screenings are just compensating for poor education. It's not a solution to anything but the question of how to raise insurance costs for young people. Just eat your damn vegetables!
- butILoveLife 7mo agoAfter a ton of research, I think the generic suggestion 'Fiber' is not helpful. Some things to consider: >There are classifications of fiber, insoluable vs soluable >Even those classifications are overly generalized, and can/should be broken down into basically individual foods. >Fiber and the various types have impact on your gut bacteria. If your gut bacteria is bad, you might be fueling growth of bad bacteria. >You don't actually need fiber >You don't actually need a colon >I think gut bacteria management will probably be the next big thing. A combination of more scientific probiotics + fiber/prebiotics. >I'm guessing the colon cancer thing is probably due to pollutants. Not necessarily air, but could be from food.
- hombre_fatal 7mo ago"Fiber from food" seems good enough. It's hard not to fibermax without incidentally improving your diet substantially. For example, beans are one of the best and easiest sources of it. Splitting hairs beyond that, like insoluble and soluble, is the kind of thing that just confuses and intimidates people about nutrition advice. It's a bridge you can cross once everyone is eating 50g+ of fiber per day, has chiseled physiques, and are looking to min/max.
- butILoveLife 7mo agoThis is hubris. I actually think I got my first colon issue because I ate too many beans.
- 7mo ago
- dham 7mo agoThey need to lower the screening to 40. I just had mine at 40, turned out fine luckily. Did it without sedation which my doctor said was rare in US, but common outside of US. I found surprising, wasn't that big of a deal. Pain was probably at a 7/10 during the turns (like 3 times) but ok the rest of the time. A little uncomfortable. Some new sensations, some familiar (feeling like you are crapping your pants). I walked in and walked out no issue and went on about my day. Prep was fine but would be hard if I didn't work at home.
- y-c-o-m-b 7mo agoWhich state did you have it done in if I may ask? I'm in Oregon and haven't been able to find a doc that does it without sedation. I can't be put under sedation for medical reasons, but I definitely need this procedure done sooner than later due to new GI problems.
- dham 7mo agoNorth Carolina. And I wasn't actually aware that some doctors wouldn't do until after I had it done (reading about it online). I just called before my appointment to say I didn't need sedation. They said ok and wrote it down. They weren't really pushy during the appointment other than asking me why I didn't want sedation. I thought it was going to be awkward but wasn't at all. We just chatted. It was him and an assistant. I was able to watch the TV of my colon while he was doing it.
- rootusrootus 7mo agoFor people who might be interested in following your advice, the conventional wisdom is that you should definitely look around when choosing the doctor. I.e. do not use a regular gastroenterologist who primarily does sedated colonoscopies, you want one who has experience with non-sedated ones. They have a better idea of what hurts and how to mitigate that.
- dham 7mo ago
- xbryanx 7mo agoRecent discussion on this topic: Overall, the colorectal cancer story is encouraging https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47078840 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47078840
- bschmidt300 7mo ago[dead]
- freediddy 7mo agoUltra-marathoners have a 7x chance of getting colon cancer under 50. This is where it needs to be studied, maybe it's a common food or common supplement they are taking?
- andrewmcwatters 7mo ago[dead]
- moi2388 7mo agoDehydration? Overconsumption of carbohydrates?
- slibhb 7mo agoCan you provide a link? I looked and all I found was one study that looked for pre-cancerous adenomas.
- Drunk_Engineer 7mo agoI can find only a single paper making this claim about marathoners. And that study has attracted a lot of criticism.
- ifwinterco 7mo agoThat's such a big disparity I'm very suspicious of that data, but there seems to be plenty of evidence that grossly excessive cardiovascular exercise is bad for you in various ways. If people enjoy it and really get a lot out of it then I wouldn't judge them for doing it, but let's not pretend it's healthy, because all the evidence is that it isn't. In terms of cardio being able to run a half decent 5k a couple of times a week is probably a good idea, any more volume than that is really not necessary and at some point becomes harmful
- slibhb 7mo agoClaiming that distance running is unhealthy is wild. It can lead to injury, and there's such thing as overtraining. But to claim that it's broadly unhealthy is just wrong
- zthrowaway 7mo agoI think part of this can be attributed to prolonged gut inflammation caused by toxins and parasites. There’s something like 60% of the population has some form of parasite and have no idea, which causes a lot of inflammation and problems. Problems that don’t necessarily point to the gut being the culprit on the surface. So it’s misdiagnosed a lot. I recommend everyone do a gut cleanse once a year.
- rubicon33 7mo agoWhat do you mean when you say “do a gut cleanse”?
- anonymous344 7mo agofenben, ivermect. herbs like blackseed oil, blac walnut, even organic cloves
- kingkawn 7mo agoI sacrifice a houseplant to baphomet as an alternative
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- jeffbee 7mo agoFrom the company that brought you the Lung Brush.
- zthrowaway 7mo agoI mean a program (series of herbal supplements) that can cure gut inflammation and help with digestion, and in some circumstances get rid of parasites. Herbal medicine, things that other cultures have been doing for thousands of years. Do I have to prove that turmeric lowers inflammation in the body? What is going on in this thread lol. “gut cleanse” obviously is a trigger phrase on HN it seems.
- zby 7mo agoHmm - but has its incidence increased or just other causes have fallen down faster?
- anonymous344 7mo agothe 1 reason for colon cancer is milk. it's not natural anymore and casein makes it's problems because the fat is altered by homogenization. second is whey and monsanto. third is canola oils. fourth is cirtric acid, it's not from citrus. and it's everywhere, in every beverage, juice and preserved food, even in beers. eat healthy my lads. trust not the media
- rootusrootus 7mo agoThose are some big claims, which without any references at all smell a lot like bro science.
- anonymous344 7mo agofor you double and triple jabbd, no evidence is enough. im not here even trying to convince u, just stating what is obvious. there are studies, but you won't believe them because 10 other studies paid by the canola companies state otherwise
- Kenji 7mo ago[dead]
- smarf 7mo agocould you provide some further information on this? it seems to contradict other studies, such as: - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11239739/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11239739/
- h4kr1 7mo agoParroting the health "influencer" (grifter) talking points here ^
- ceedan 7mo agoThe decline in mortality for so many other types of cancer has caused colon cancer to become the leading cause of cancer deaths under 50 in US. Eat more fiber.
- rauljordan2020 7mo agoSo many folks that have it say things like "I was super healthy! Did exercise, young, don't drink, etc." Then you dig deeper and realize the last vegetable meal they ate was a soggy brussel sprout their mom made them when they were 17 years old, and also eat cold cut turkey sandwiches every lunch because they're "healthy", and maybe have a tiny shred of lettuce in the sandwich. For breakfast, they eat pancakes or sugary foods, and dinner is just a piece of steak
- gavinray 7mo agohttps://realfood.gov/ https://realfood.gov/
- hackyhacky 7mo agoLet's keep in mind that this is the recommendation from the same government that recently declined to regulate dangerous pesticides [1] and relaxed regulations on additives [2]. The current US administration is not at all interesting in addressing America's unhealthy food. [1] https://cen.acs.org/environment/pesticides/glyphosate-roundup-bayer-monsanto-preemption-trump-executive-order/104/web/2026/03 https://cen.acs.org/environment/pesticides/glyphosate-roundu... [2] https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-takes-new-approach-no-artificial-colors-claims https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-take...
- gavinray 7mo agoIt's better than the "Food Pyramid" and "MyPlate" which were the gov standards when I was growing up. Those standards put processed carbs like bread/pasta as the largest part of a "healthy diet". Whoops.
- hackyhacky 7mo ago> It's better than the "Food Pyramid" and "MyPlate" which were the gov standards when I was growing up. Correct. The root of the problem is that corporate interests influence government regulation. [1] That hasn't changed. What has changed is which industry is offering the largest bribes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
- Pxtl 7mo agoAmazing how everybody in this thread has posted their pet theories as to cause: - insufficient fibre - too much high fructose corn syrup - too much milk - too much citric acid - toxins and parasites (gut cleanse!) - washing chicken in chlorine (voiced as hypothetical) - ultra-marathoners - maybe their supplements and too much carbs or dehydration? - too much processed junk - vitamin and mineral deficiencies - radiation - insufficient veggies
- gdulli 7mo agoThrow return to office in there. You know it's coming eventually.
- Pxtl 7mo agoCall it: RTO causes colon cancer, or WFH causes colon cancer?
- z9e 7mo agoYeah. Amazing how people on a forum are offering their opinions on something. Let’s point and laugh at them. /s I’m more amazed at the toxic (no pun intended) comments in this post. It seems HN isn’t a place to voice health theories.
- Guid_NewGuid 7mo agoThere's a difference between informed speculation and uninformed speculation and most of the opinions so far fall into uninformed speculation where the writer implicitly blames those suffering for poor diet and lifestyle choices. In addition a lot of the speculation assumes something specific to the US where this is a trend in multiple countries, predominantly high income ones[0][1], but this speculation that it might be 'chemicals' is fairly dull to read and adds nothing. Why this cohort specifically? What commonalities are there between countries with an observed increase? If it's diet why would it only impact the younger cohort? [0]: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(24)00600-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2... [1]: https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(21)00010-X/fulltext https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(21)00010-X/...
- gavinray 7mo agoScary. I had whole-genome sequencing done and the results came back with dozens of "Increased risk for colo-rectal cancer" results. I'm likely going to die of either a heart attack (already had one, at age 28), or cancer, and it seems genetic. EDIT: Specific genes and alleles below, if anyone is curious https://i.imgur.com/szplWSj.png https://i.imgur.com/szplWSj.png
- kjkjadksj 7mo agoProbably nothing to worry about. Unless it is lynch syndrome.
- gavinray 7mo agoI have two SNP's for Lynch syndrome, is that enough to warrant concern? https://i.imgur.com/DZiJhGJ.png https://i.imgur.com/DZiJhGJ.png https://i.imgur.com/PKF2QDr.png https://i.imgur.com/PKF2QDr.png
- kjkjadksj 7mo agoAny family history? I would speak to a genetic counselor if you are concerned. I’m not sure how your data are presented if you actually have lynch syndrome or things associated with lynch. The idea with lynch is that you are heterozygous for having a working mismatch repair mechanism that corrects certain DNA errors. And in the tumor sometimes you get a ‘second hit’ mutation to this, taking out your only good copy of mismatch repair, creating a different sort of tumor as a lot of DNA error isn’t getting repaired. This sort of tumor responds well to pd1 therapy.
- bschmidt400 7mo ago[dead]
- boxingdog 7mo ago[dead]
- nativeit 7mo agoAs a Multiple Sclerosis patient since I was a teenager, let me just say: all you “healthy diet” zealots aren’t helping. Your advice on which blended kale and gogi berry smoothie I should try is cringe and annoying. Normally, the person is right in front of me, and well-intentioned, so I typically smile and politely thank them with a non-committal gesture towards trying it someday. But since this is all one-party and relatively anonymous, I’d like to take the opportunity to tell everyone that unless you have a PhD or MD in a relevant field, your thoughts about fiber are irrelevant and unwelcome to anyone actually suffering from the disease(s) in question.
- achandra03 7mo agoI think this is probably due to people suffering from the just-world fallacy. Most folks like to believe that if you do the right things and consume the right stuff you'll have a long and healthy life when the fact of the matter is that luck/randomness plays a much larger role in your health than most people would like to admit.
- imjonse 7mo agoOne should acknowledge the role genes/luck play in disease, while also admitting that there are a few foods about which there is more or less consensus they are very bad for your health. So you can roll your eyes if someone suggests eating kale sprouts will cure all your problems but don't just keep eating junk food as if the opposite of their take must be good.
- secstate 7mo agoThis. I'm as exhausted as anyone about the latest macro/micro nutrient diet. But also, when I binge on a bag of potato chips, I assume (correctly) that I'll feel like shit later. Calorie dense food that's easily procured and eaten to excess was not part of our evolutionary path up to now. Every individual person is a cornucopia of variables though too, and one persons perfect diet would kill someone else. So advice is hard to give out, but there are clearly some broad guidelines to eating and health that help you mitigate bad dice rolls.
- lend000 7mo agoMy step-brother had this around 40. He's okay now, but it was a terrible process involving surgery, carrying around a bag, and chemo which aged him significantly during treatment (from no gray hair to all gray in a couple years). You would have never guessed he was an unhealthy guy by looking at him, but I do assume it has something to do with foods we consider normal in the US. I've taken a page out of Bryan Johnson's book and started eating well over 100% of recommended daily fiber intake (easy and enjoyable if you make some chia seed porridge every morning), and I will say my digestion has never been better. Keeping the system clear seems like a sane first line of defense to preventing this kind of thing.
- taeric 7mo agoThis almost certainly speaks more to how much we have advanced on other cancers? The chart for total incidence shows it peaked in the 80s at about 70 per 100k and is down to about 40 per the same amount, now. Such that, yes, we can still get better. But people here are reacting as if there is some damning evidence that just doesn't track with the data. Even with an uptick in younger people getting this, we still don't have a smoking gun on anything that is directly causal to this. Also, holy crap, if you have rectal bleeding, don't ignore it! That that is listed as an early warning sign that people ignore is terrifying.
- UltraSane 7mo agoOne of the healthiest things you can do is buy a vitamix or similarly powerful blender and make kale, spinach, broccoli, and mixed berry smoothies with olive oil. They don't have to taste GOOD, just good enough to be chugged as fast as possible.
- TrackerFF 7mo agoIf you have the symptoms, go get yourself checked out. I delayed my colonoscopy for YEARS, hell - I even delayed my doctors visit for years, and I had pretty much every symptom there is. My anxiety was through the roof when taking the blood test, and getting the colonoscopy - as I simply assumed they'd find something. But, no. They didn't find a single thing. Blood and stool tests came back fine. Not even a polyp was found during the colonoscopy. The only thing that kind of sucked, was the prep - there's no way around that. But the colonoscopy itself, no problem. I get some mild sedatives, but was completely awake during the procedure - even watched it on the screen.
- elinear 7mo agoHank Green's visualization[0] a few weeks ago cite several statistically significant risk increases to CRC incidence (omitting ultra endurance athletes): - Sugary drinks (≥2/day as teen) - 2x - Sedentary lifestyle (>2hr TV/day) - 1.7x - Childhood antibiotics (recurrent) - 1.5x Have any studies tracked the growth of these behaviors in recent decades, potentially lining up with the increase in early onset CRC? [0] https://www.hankgreen.com/risk-factors https://www.hankgreen.com/risk-factors
- m3nu 7mo agoInteresting but link is dead? Would love to see this. Found it: https://www.hankgreen.com/crc https://www.hankgreen.com/crc
- tomasphan 7mo agoHere take your pick: Antibiotics, Potassium bromate, aspartame, Red 40, rBGH/rBST, Chlorpyrifos, Atrazine and many more
- tim333 7mo agoIn other stories - a toxin called colibactin produce by some strains of E Coli may be involved >E. coli toxin could be linked to rising rates of bowel cancer in younger adults https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2025/04/23/colibactin-e-coli-early-onset-bowel-cancer/ https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2025/04/23/colibactin-e-co...
- IAmGraydon 7mo agoSo…what was the leading cause of cancer deaths for age < 50 before now?