Scientists have identified 11 cancers becoming more common in young people in England, and they’ve found the first tentative clue as to why. But the full picture remains frustratingly unclear.
The cancers rising in younger adults include bowel, breast, thyroid, liver, kidney, pancreatic, womb, and ovarian cancers, among others. Bowel and breast cancer are the most prevalent, accounting for around 11,500 cases a year in under-50s.
For Bradley Coombes, a fit 23-year-old on the verge of a semi-professional football career, bowel cancer proved fatal, his symptoms dismissed for 18 months because he was considered too young to have the disease.
The Obesity Connection
Researchers at the Institute of Cancer Research and Imperial College London worked through decades of national data, looking for lifestyle trends that might explain the rise. Smoking, alcohol, red meat consumption and physical inactivity were all either stable or improving. The one factor that tracked with rising cancer rates was increasing levels of overweight and obesity since the 1990s. Excess fat tissue alters hormones like insulin, which can influence cancer risk.
But even this explanation only goes so far. For bowel cancer, researchers estimate that for every 100 extra cases, roughly 20 might be attributable to excess weight. The other 80 remain unexplained.
What Else Could Be Behind It?
Scientists are actively investigating a range of other suspects, ultra-processed foods, “forever chemicals” (PFAS), antibiotic use, air pollution, gut bacteria, and even weedkillers have all been proposed. It’s also possible that improved detection is catching cancers in younger people that would previously have gone undiagnosed.
For now, the message from researchers is measured: cancer in young people is still rare, roughly one in 1,000 people in their 20s to 40s are diagnosed each year, compared to one in 100 for older age groups. And nearly 40% of cancers globally are considered preventable through lifestyle choices such as staying active, not smoking, and maintaining a healthy weight.
The search for answers continues, but for families like Bradley’s, it cannot come soon enough.