Older Women, Younger Adults See Uptick in Cancer Cases

More than 1 in 3 men and 1 in 4 women are overweight, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Alcohol may play a role, as well, along with eating ultra-processed foods and red meat (particularly for colon cancer). The U.S. Surgeon general recently issued a report that said alcohol use is linked to seven different cancers.

Larry Norton, M.D., medical director of the Evelyn H. Lauder Breast Center with Memorial Sloan Kettering, says the increase in alcohol use during the pandemic may be increasing cancer risk for men and women.

“The data on high alcohol intake is very clear. There are a lot of cancers associated with high alcohol use,” Norton says. Researchers are still debating how big of an effect moderate alcohol use has on cancer risk, he adds, but “the one thing everybody in my field would say is that it’s better to drink less than more.” 

Cancer continues to rise among young and middle-aged adults

What's also concerning is the sharp rise in cancer cases in younger and middle-aged adults.

“There are an increasing number of young people being diagnosed with cancer, particularly under the age of 50,” Kamal says.

Last year’s American Cancer Society annual report found that while the overall proportion of cancer diagnoses decreased for adults 65 and older over the last three decades, it increased for those ages 50 to 64.

Additional new research supports the American Cancer Society's data. An August 2024 study published in the Lancet found that younger adults have a higher risk of 17 types of cancer — including breast, pancreatic and gastric — than older generations would have faced at the same age.

Scientists aren’t sure why more young people are getting cancer. However, because younger adults are not typically screened for many types of cancers and some of the cancers on the rise don’t have screening methods, Kamal says it’s crucial for people to advocate for themselves if they have unusual symptoms or notice something changing about their bodies.

Norton says there is an urgent need to understand why this is happening. “This is a time for dramatically increasing our research using our modern tools in data science to find things we are not thinking about, that we are not yet aware of, that actually may be associated with these trends.”  

More Black adults and Native Americans are dying

Alarming inequalities in cancer mortality continue, according to this latest report. Native Americans are 2 to 3 times more likely to die than white people from kidney, liver, stomach and cervical cancers. Black people are twice as likely to die of prostate, stomach and uterine cancer compared with white people, and are 50 percent more likely to die from cervical cancer, which is highly preventable.

In Black adults between the ages of 50 and 64, the cancer incidence rate continues to be higher in men than women.

Kamal says that although all men should start screening for prostate cancer at age 50, Black men should get a test for prostate cancer earlier, at age 45.

Reducing your cancer risk

The key things you can do to lower your risk of cancer are the same habits that help keep you healthy in general: exercise regularly, eat a healthy diet, avoid alcohol and don’t smoke. (See 10 Things You Can Do Right Now to Help Prevent Cancer.)

It’s also important to get recommended screenings for cancer, including mammograms for women, prostate cancer screening for men and colonoscopies for both.

Norton says exercise is especially important for cancer prevention.

“Exercise changes your body's physiology,” he says. “Exercise is not just for your heart, or your lungs or your bones, as many people know, but it’s really for all the cells of your body.”

Kamal says that the increase in lung cancer incidence, particularly among non-smokers, should inspire more people to be screened for lung cancer.

Only 6 percent of people eligible for lung cancer are getting screened, he adds.

Doctors can now use CT scans to find lung cancer early, when treatment is more likely to be successful. But signs of lung cancer can be easy to miss, and 20 percent of lung cancers happen in people who have never smoked.

Kamal says if you have a cough that won't go away, doctors may think it's due to acid reflux or a cold, but once they've eliminated those possibilities, they "may ignore those symptoms or not pay attention." In that case, he says, a patient should bring up the possibility that a lingering cough could be due to lung cancer.

If you are diagnosed with cancer, Kamal recommends joining a clinical trial, if possible. He says mortality rates for children with leukemia have dropped 70 percent in the last 20 years, which he believes is largely due to the majority of children with leukemia being enrolled in clinical trials.

“When people ask me, ‘When will we cure adult cancer?’ The answer I give is: ‘When we get to the point where most adults with cancer are participating in a clinical trial.’”