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New Report Shows Increase In Cancer Rates Among Millennials And Gen Z

Compared to previous generations, younger individuals — including Millennials and Gen Z patients — have increased incidence rates in 17 different types of cancers, according to a new report from the American Cancer Society.

These findings are one of many that found an "increased cancer risk in younger generations," the report said.

"This is a trend that I think validated what we're seeing in the clinic," said Dr. Jonathan Mizrahi, an oncologist at Ochsner MD Anderson Cancer Center in New Orleans. "I'm seeing more and more patients in their 20s and 30s that are being diagnosed with cancers."

According to Mizrahi, there is no real answer as to why this is happening. Many have their theories: Is it nutritional? Is it lifestyles? Is it environmental?

An incidence rate is the number of new cases of a disease divided by the number of persons at risk for the disease. In this case, scientists determined that the number of new cancer cases in younger generations is growing at a higher rate than that of older patients. The mortality, or death rate, of those cancers is also increasing, according to the report.

"When I see some of my younger folks," Mizrahi said. "They have some of the most aggressive cancers I'm seeing."

The data

Researchers in the ACS-sponsored study looked at nationwide cancer incidence data from over 23 million patients diagnosed with 34 different types of cancer between 2000 and 2019. To compare cancer rates across generations, the researchers calculated age-specific cancer rates in five-year intervals from 1920 to 1990.

They found that incidence rates increased in each five-year interval for 8 out of the 34 cancers studied.

In particular, the incidence rate was approximately three times higher among those born around 1990 than those born around 1955 for pancreatic, kidney, small intestinal (for both males and females) and liver cancers.

Additionally, cancer incidence rates increased for Millennials and Gen Z generations for nine cancers, including breast cancer, uterine corpus cancer, colorectal cancer, non-cardia gastric cancer, gallbladder cancer, ovarian cancer, testicular cancer, anal cancer in male individuals and Kaposi sarcoma in male individuals.

Across cancer types, the incidence rate for Millennials (the 1990 birth group) ranged from 12% higher rates for ovarian cancer to 169% higher rates for uterine corpus cancer. Notably, mortality rates increased in younger birth groups alongside incidence rates for liver cancer (female only), uterine corpus (endometrial cancer), gallbladder, testicular and colorectal cancers.

"The increase in cancer rates among this younger group of people indicate generational shifts in cancer risk and often serve as an early indicator of future cancer burden in the country," said Dr. Ahmedin Jemal, the senior author of the American Cancer Society study. "The data highlights the critical need to identify and address underlying risk factors in Gen X and Millennial populations to inform prevention strategies."

Why is this happening?

Many doctors have different hypotheses as to why the increasing trend of cancer among young people is growing. Mizrahi points to various "hot concepts" researchers are looking into for the cause of this trend.

Scientists are looking at nutrition (the change in highly processed food and overall relationships with food), physical inactivity (the increase of sedentary lifestyle among Americans), antibiotics (how different medicines, foods and ingested bacteria affect the microbiome) and many other factors. 

"It's a little bit of a chicken and the egg," Mizrahi said. "I think we are at just the tip of the iceberg in terms of our understanding of this relationship."

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