Health problems among Gen Z and Millennials being on the rise is not a new topic. In the past few years, several studies and research have been conducted about the concerning rise of illnesses and chronic issues among the younger generations.
Recently, studies have come about how individuals in Gen Z and Millennials are experiencing higher rates of several cancer types, including colorectal, breast, uterine, pancreatic and others.
Experts believe that some of this rise in number could simply be due to increased awareness and improved detection, but others believe that lifestyle, environment, and generational risk patterns could be other reasons to take into consideration.
Why Are Cancer Rates Seeing A Rise?
Over the past few years, the number of cancer cases has seen an alarming increase, especially among those under 30 or 50 years of age.
According to reports, data from the American Cancer Society for January 2025 revealed that cancer case rates “in women under 50 are now 82% higher than their male counterparts, up from 51% in 2002.”
A February 2025 report by Time also claimed that Dr Frank Frizelle, a professor of surgery at the University of Otago in New Zealand, found that, as per national health data, “colorectal cancer, he discovered, was indeed being diagnosed more often than in previous years among New Zealanders under 50.”
A similar spike in colorectal cancers was also noticed among the young adult population of Sweden and Scotland.
Now, cancer has traditionally been viewed as an old person’s disease, and only in infrequent instances do those from younger age brackets get it. However, now, it was being noticed that many people in their peak years were being diagnosed with cancer.
A 2023 study published in the medical journal BMJ Oncology titled ‘Global trends in incidence, death, burden and risk factors of early-onset cancer from 1990 to 2019’ also found that “Global incidence of early-onset cancer increased by 79.1% and the number of early-onset cancer deaths increased by 27.7% between 1990 and 2019.”
The study also stated, “Globally, the incidence rates of early-onset nasopharyngeal and prostate cancer showed the fastest increasing trend, whereas early-onset liver cancer showed the sharpest decrease.”
Breast cancer has always been the most talked about cancer among women; however, in recent years, cancers in the digestive organs, such as the colon, rectum, pancreas, and stomach, have also seen a rise.
Further a study published in Journal of the National Cancer Insitute, titled ‘Colorectal Cancer Incidence Patterns in the United States, 1974–2013’ also reveals that “compared with adults born circa 1950, those born circa 1990 have double the risk of colon cancer (IRR = 2.40, 95% CI = 1.11 to 5.19) and quadruple the risk of rectal cancer.”
Read More: New Study Says Those Born Between 2008-2017 May Develop This Cancer Type
In 2024, a study published in The Lancet observed that in the United States, the incidence of 17 cancers has risen significantly among young men and women, especially for those born after 1990.
Study coauthor Hyuna Sung, a cancer epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society in Atlanta, also commented that the highest rise seen was among cancers of the small intestine and pancreas.
In India as well, as per a Firstpost report, the Indian Council of Medical Research noticed that “one in nine Indians is likely to have cancer in a lifetime.”
Kimmie Ng, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the founding director of the Young-Onset Colorectal Cancer Center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, was quoted by Harvard Gazette saying, “Somebody who is born in 1990 now has quadruple the risk of developing rectal cancer and over double the risk of developing colon cancer compared to a similarly aged person who was born in 1950.”
Ng spoke about how this could be attributed to the “birth cohort effect, where the increase is really varying by generation.”
She further explained that, “the rise has been happening in every birth cohort basically since 1950. But the trends have been formally documented in published literature since probably the mid-1990s.
So for colorectal cancer, for example, we have been seeing about a two per cent per year rise in the rates of colorectal cancer in both men and women since the mid-1990s, and it is estimated that by the year 2030, colorectal cancer will be the leading cause of cancer-related death in people under the age of 50.”
Timothy Rebbeck, the Vincent Gregory Professor of Cancer Prevention at the Harvard Chan School and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, speaking about what could be the reason behind this rise, said, “Many of those, of course, include diet, lifestyle, obesity, alcohol, and tobacco use.”
Tomotaka Ugai, a cancer epidemiologist at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, added that, “several early-onset cancer types have increased more rapidly compared to later-onset cancers. This suggests that certain exposures, such as new risk factors or established risk factors, have shifted toward younger populations.
For example, the prevalence of obesity has increased among younger populations, but also pollutions or microenvironments, or some other toxins can be considered potential new risk factors for early-onset cancers.”
Obesity seems to be a common cause of early-onset cancer. The Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre team noted that obesity causes chronic inflammation, a known cancer-promoting mechanism, and emphasises that although obesity alone doesn’t fully explain the trend (some young patients are not obese), dietary and metabolic factors remain central suspects in rising early-onset cancer rates.
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: Time Magazine, Firstpost, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
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This post is tagged under: Cancer, Cancer rate, gen z Cancer, Millennial Cancer, health, millennial health, gen z health
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