It’s one of today’s most puzzling medical mysteries: Why are so many young, otherwise healthy people diagnosed with cancer?
Cases of the disease have risen by 30 percent among people under 50 over the past two decades – with high-profile sufferers including Princess Kate Middleton, 42.
Now American researchers have come across a possible explanation.
A new study by experts at Washington University in St. Louis has found that the generations with higher cancer rates have cells and tissues in their bodies that are older than their age.
In other words, people born after 1965 – age 59 or younger – may be biologically older than their chronological age.
Cells are the hub of every bodily function. And as they age, their ability to repair and reproduce is reduced, leading to a plethora of knock-on effects.
The graph above shows that the number of cases of colon cancer under the age of fifty has increased by more than 5,500 in twenty years. There has been a decline in 2020 as the Covid pandemic led to fewer people registering for screenings.
Kate Middleton, 42, was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year after abdominal surgery
Those with above-average accelerated aging had a 17 percent higher risk of developing solid tumor cancers, including lung, gastrointestinal and uterine cancers.
Faster aging may be due to a more stressful lifestyle and poorer mental health, obesity, a sedentary lifestyle and the consumption of junk food.
For the study, researchers tracked data from almost 150,000 people in the biomedical data UK Biobank.
Nine blood-based markers from blood tests were looked at to determine each person’s biological age – how old a person’s cells and tissues are.
The markers included albumin – a protein produced by the liver and important for preventing fluid from leaking from blood vessels – which decreases with age, and the average size of red blood cells, which increases with age.
When blood cells are larger, they are less able to divide and multiply.
These were fed into an algorithm called PhenoAge, which generated a biological age for each person.
Researchers then compared this with the participants’ actual ages and looked at cancer registers to see how many people had been diagnosed with early-stage cancer – defined as cancer before the age of 55.
Nearly 3,200 early cancers were diagnosed.
People born in 1965 or later were 17 percent more likely to experience accelerated aging than people born between 1950 and 1954.
Ruiyi Tian, a University of Washington graduate and first author of the study, said: ‘Unlike chronological age, biological age can be influenced by factors such as diet, physical activity, mental health and environmental stressors.
‘Accumulating evidence suggests that younger generations may be aging faster than expected, likely due to previous exposure to various risk factors and environmental insults.’
People who scored the highest on accelerated aging had double the risk of lung cancer at a young age, compared to people with the smallest amounts of accelerated aging.
They also had a 60 percent higher risk of a stomach tumor and an 80 percent higher risk of uterine cancer.
Lifestyle factors such as smoking or vaping are known to increase cell damage (and therefore biological age) due to the impact on blood vessels and blood pressure.
Not getting enough sleep can also increase biological age, as can excess weight and obesity.
All these factors have also been highlighted as contributing to the increasing incidence of cancer under the age of fifty.
In particular, rates of colon cancer have been rising, with a 50 percent increase in diagnoses among adults under 50 in the U.S. since 1999.
In a study published this month, researchers found that patients with an aggressive form of colon cancer have unusually high levels of three bacteria in their intestines.
Levels of fusobacterium, clostridium and shewanella have all been linked to diets high in processed foods and sugar, and low in fiber, fruits and vegetables.
Testing for these three bacteria could help diagnose those most at risk, the authors wrote.
In the US, nearly 18,000 cases of colon cancer are diagnosed annually among people in their 50s, compared to 12,000 per year before 2000.
Evan White, from Dallas, was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer at the age of 24 after going to the hospital to have an abscess removed from his tonsils. On the right is Marisa Maddox who was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 29. She can no longer have children
An even greater increase has been seen in all cancers affecting the digestive tract, which has also been linked to poor diet.
In the study, scientists tested stool samples from 94 colon cancer patients. Twenty-four of these patients’ tumors had a KRAS mutation, which makes the cancer more aggressive.
Young patients diagnosed with colon cancer include Evan White, 24, of Dallas, whose tumor was not discovered until it had progressed to stage three – when the cancer is more difficult to treat.
He was on track to marry his girlfriend and move to California, but he died after a four-year battle with the disease.
Others include Marisa Maddoz, a Delaware paralegal who was diagnosed with the disease at age 29.
She told DailyMail.com that treatment for the cancer has left her unable to have a child.
Kate Middleton, 42, bravely revealed last month that she had also been diagnosed with cancer following abdominal surgery.
She didn’t reveal what type of cancer the doctors discovered, but her comments sparked an outpouring of support — and inspired some cancer survivors to share their stories.