Experts have just spoken out to reveal that cancer rates are five times higher in millennials because they are fatter than older generations.
Cancers related to obesity like bowel, womb and pancreatic are much higher in people under 50 than they have been in the past, and researchers say they will likely go up dramatically in the coming years.
Pancreatic cancer rates went up by 4.34 per cent a year among 25 to 29-year-olds over the last twenty years, which is 5.6 times higher than the 0.77 per cent in those aged 45 to 49.
This was discovered by scientists with the American Cancer Society, who looked at cancer data covering half of the US population between 1995 and 2014. The experts looked at 14,672,409 cases involving 30 of the most common cancer types, including 12 obesity-related cancers, dividing patients into five-year age groups from 25-29 to 80-84 years old.
“Our findings expose a recent change that could serve as a warning of an increased burden of obesity-related cancers to come in older adults,” said Dr Ahmedin Jemal, from the American Cancer Society. “Most cancers occur in older adults, which means that as the young people in our study age, the burden of obesity-related cancer cases and deaths are likely to increase even more. On the eve of World Cancer Day, it’s timely to consider what can be done to avert the impending rise.”
“Over the past few decades, death rates have been in decline for most cancers, but in the future obesity could reverse that progress, barring any interventions,” he continued. “Younger generations are experiencing earlier and longer-lasting exposure to excess fat and to obesity-related health conditions that can increase cancer risk.”
This just goes to show how important it is to combat obesity, now more than ever.
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