Is cancer becoming more common in younger people?

[Loraleeb]

It just dawned on me as I scrolled through some comments how young so many of us affected by cancer are. Do you feel cancer is becoming more common in younger people? If so, what do you feel the cause may be? LLx

[AmandaC]

Loralee I think this is an interesting topic and endless in possibilities. Often those around us like to blame it on the people around us or on us but of course we know it takes more than that right! I have a few theories No1 we now use more chemicals for cleaning our homes, No2 we have foods filled with preservatives and drinks filled with fake sugars ect...surely fresh foods are the go, No3 more cars on the road, so pollutions may contribute and No4 is one I butt heads with people about all the time possibilities of manifestation...sorta what you've been talking about links between emoitional stuff and illness. I look forward to reading othe rpeoples view on the subject!

[dunedigger]

I expect that statistics are kept on this. I hear of babies born with cancer so cancer is normal in our lives BUT why it it that in the modern world cancer is so much more prevalent ? . Is it because we live in a land of milk and honey or more importantly a land of plenty where cancer never gets starved for nutrition ?. Cancer can be starved and dies as happened to prisoners of war. We now have so much sugar in our diets and cancer thrives on refined sugars. Opps I got off track . . . I certainty don't remember cancer amongst children back in the 1950s and 60s

[Sailor]

Hi I spent a few hours thus afternoon looking at the statistics. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare publishes regular updates on cancer incidence and cancer mortality in Australia. It also breaks down the data into five year age ranges, 20-24, 25-30, etc. So if you look at the data for 25-26 year olds, there is a very slight increase over the past twenty years, but it is a very slight increase. For other age e.g. 65-70 years olds, bigger increase that reflects the ageing of the population. I think part of the issue is that once we have experienced cancer we are much more aware of it, so notice it and also move in circles where our acquaintances are more likely to have experienced cancer. cheers Sailor The art of the sailor is to leave nothing to chance. Annie Van De Wiele

[Loraleeb]

Have any of you read Bernie Siegel's book, 'Love, Medicine and Miracles'? His ideas certainly echo my circumstances of why I believe I had cancer -- yes, the stress link. I know we all suffer from stress, it's how we handle that stress that can lead to cell misfunction and breakdown leaving the gate open for cancer and other diseases. As for diet, again I believe that more and more of us are eating red meat and dairy, which as you know is full of hormones which cancer can feed on. I didn't know about the refined sugar idea - that's interesting and certainly makes sense. Here in England they call breast cancer the rich middle aged woman's disease as it seems to affect the that bracket most. Sailor, you kindly looked up stats in Australia. I wonder if that's a worldwide reflection. I'd be interested to compare them to the USA's whose diet and lifestyle may be different. Just out of curiosity, how many of you suffered a traumatic experience 18 months to two years before you were diagnosed? Thanks all for your feedback - I find it very intersting! LLx

[dunedigger]

Hi Loraleeb I can relate o a stressful event, which would have occurred about the time I developed very early symptoms. It was a human rights issue which our business was VERY unfairly called on to explain, it was more like a kangaroo court. Another event was when a client tried to sue us. My stomach does flips as I write this. The people involved in these cases I still wish them infernal (terminal) cancer Loraleeb, are you on the Macmillan ( English ) website. There are a lot of people there to discuss this Dunedigger

[Sailor]

Hi everyone Many years ago a friend I visited had on his wall a poster of a roof of a medieval European house, with hand made tiles on the roof - each tile was different, but together they worked as a roof. It was the words printed over the picture that I remember: To every complex problem There are many simple solutions They are wrong! Is cancer incidence increasing? Yes, because cancer is largely a disease of older age and we are living longer. So by the time we reach 75, (and we can all expect to reach 75 now - a huge change in the past 50 years) there is a 1 in 3 chance if your male and a 1 in 4 chance if your female, of having cancer. In this we are excluding all skin cancer except melanoma. Is there variation in different cancers - yes, and it is argued that this is due to lifestyle changes and this is a positive. Most of our information about lifestyle and cancer comes from studies that look at cancer in different countries, changes in lifestyle and then in migrant groups changing from country of origin lifestyle to new country lifestyle. So, for example, as we have improved food preservation we have prevented cancer - yes, moulds that occur in food produce cancer causing substances. As we smoked more cigarettes in the early 1900's, so we increased lung cancer. We also have to be aware of incidence figures that may simply reflect that we are better at diagnosing cancer. The classic case of this has been the significant increase in prostate cancer since the early 1990's - it simply reflects the availability of the PSA test - not the real incidence of prostate cancer. What is more important is the survival data. 50 years ago the overall five year survival from cancer was about 25%, now it is >60%. That is something to celebrate. Sress? Did I have stress in my life before I had cancer - yes, but so do lots of people who don't get cancer. Also we know that for many cancers, particularly ones that are linked to lifestyle, the length of time for the cancer to develop is often up to forty years. Did we have stress forty years ago? What do we mean by stress anyway? Do we use the psychiatrists definition, the endocrinologists definition, the popular press definition (if we used the latter - going to an AFL match such as the last Hawthorn Geelong match would mean there are > 60,000 people who are going to get cancer as a result!). If you want information on cancer incidence and survival then go the the Cancer Australia website, or the Cancer Council website. Cheers Sailor Countless as the sands of the sea are human passions. Nikolai Gogol

[Sailor]

Shame on you Dunedigger As someone who has cancer and lives with it, I would not wish cancer on my worst enemy. In one of my early blogs I warned about going down the "What If" road and how you can end up bitter and twisted. I think the same applies to the "Blame Road" . It is a road that you need to think about carefully before you go down it. Sailor Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could Robert Frost - The Road Less Travelled.

[stevec]

This is a very complex question and one worth exploring I think. I've also been doing a bit of research into it and what I've found is that the incidence of some cancers is increasing for reasons that can't be explained by lifestyle deficiencies and an ageing population alone. For example, its widely cited that incidence rates of testicular cancer have been growing globally, and while a number of causes may have partially contributed to this, the overall rate of increase remains unexplained (see: http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/150/1/45.pdf.). There has also been a steady, dramatic and unexplained decrease in male fertility around the world over the last hundred years and the cause of this also remains unexplained (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-158463/Why-male-fertility-decline.html). Are these issues linked? are potential carcinogens like electromagnetic radition, caffine, car exhausts and the pill to blame? who knows? Personally, I don't believe in the link between stress and illness. I know a lot of people are and I'm very close to a few of them, but to me the idea that there is some kind of link between these things would mean that I had control over my body developing cancer at some point, and that I failed in that. However, I think it is an interesting idea. In the 2 years before I was diagnosed I had a lot of things happen: my wife was diagnosed with cancer; my father was diagnosed with cancer and passed away; we had several other family deaths; we had major issues with extended family members; my first child was born; we moved house 5 times including moving cities; one of my cats was killed and my dog died. All the time I was working in a fairly demanding and stressful job. But I still don't think any of that made me get cancer. Also, here's another interesting article I found that talks about global cancer rates: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2003/pr27/en/

[AmandaC]

I love that poem by Robert Frost! I do agree with Sailor its not good to wish cancer or anything else on anyone, don't give others the satisfaction of sinking to their level...beside can you even imagine the karma from something like that! I to have somedays where I feel if only people realised what I had been through and what they had done to me in this terrible time, but the truth is I realise their actions are a reflection on them and not me. Hugs to you Dune Digger 🙂