1st Generation to Have More Cancers Than Their Parents
Do-able Cancer Protective Hacks for the entire family but especially "wanna-be" parents.
Is cancer more common today than it was in the past? Is your child more apt to be diagnosed with thyroid or renal cancer than any generation before them?
Fact: There are more new cases of cancer in the United States than there have ever been before.
Last year, 2 million people in the country were diagnosed with cancer.
In comparison, 1 million cancer cases were diagnosed in 1990.
But the population of the US is now bigger, too.
So what is the rate of cancer per 100,000 individuals? This may give a more accurate picture.
Also, our country is aging.
The US is older now than it was in 1960.
In 2040 it is said we will have more Americans over 65 years of age than we do under 45 years of age.
Aging is a major risk factor for some cancers.
But as folks get into their 70’s this rate should go down.
But younger and younger American citizens are getting more cancers.
Younger women (age 50 or less) are getting more diagnoses of breast cancers since 2016. A trend no one understands. Yet.
But there is also the complicating fact that older people are not just older biologically; they were also born further in the past.
Current 70-year-olds were exposed to things in the 1990s when they were 40.
Current 50-year-olds had the same exposures, but when they were 20.
Birth cohort timing does play a role.
I used to run in the back of DDT trucks spraying for mosquitos. Much of my generation did. DDT is banned here now.
But this shows that it may be reasonable to think of cancer incidence not in terms of the calendar year but in terms of the risk by social generation.
With successive analysis, we can see that each successive generation since the baby boomers, cancer incidence has decreased, with one exception: Gen X.
Gen Xs’ are getting more cancers.
Generation X is the “term” describing the generation of Americans born between 1965 and 1980.
In 2024, people born between 1965 and 1980 are are 43 to 59 years old, depending on the year they were born.
This generation is known as Generation X (Gen X).
They come after the Baby Boomers,
And before the Millennials.
A National Cancer Institute study found that members of Generation X may be experiencing larger per-capita increases in the incidence of cancer compared to any prior generation.
The study, published June 10 in JAMA Network Open, used Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program data for 3.8 million patients with invasive cancer.
This study compared members of Gen X, born between 1965 and 1980, and compared it with cancer incidence from prior generations born between 1908 and 1964.
This study, "Cancer Incidence Trends in Successive Social Generations in the US," appearing in JAMA Network Open, demonstrates the statistics.
This article was from the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, Biostatistics Branch, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, Maryland.
Four findings based on a total of 3.8 million individuals dx with invasive (aggressive) cancers
In Generation X vs. baby boomers, incidence rate ratios among women increased for thyroid, colon, pancreatic, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and leukemia.
Among men in Generation X vs. baby boomers, incidence rate ratios increase for thyroid (2.16), kidney (2.14), rectal (1.8), colon (1.6), prostate (1.25) and leukemia (1.34).
Among women, lung and cervical cancers decreased, and among men, lung, liver and gallbladder cancers, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma incidence decreased.
For all cancers combined, rates were higher in Generation X than for baby boomers.
"On current trajectories, cancer incidence could remain high for decades," the study authors wrote.
At the same time, even if you are diagnosed with cancer today, you are less likely to die from it as seen in this study: cancer mortality has declined over time.
But the question looms… WHY do our kids get more cancers?