Using truly massive data bases a group of researchers looked at incidences of cancer diagnosis and death for North America. Lancet reports what they found, if not precisely why it exists.
They found that people born more recently are experiencing more incidences of cancer and more cancer deaths in successively younger generations. For example:
Notably, the incidence rate was approximately two-to-three times higher in the 1990 birth cohort than in the 1955 birth cohort for small intestine (IRR 3·56 [95% CI 2·96–4·27]), kidney and renal pelvis (2·92 [2·50–3·42]), and pancreatic (2·61 [2·22–3·07]) cancers in both male and female individuals; and for liver and intrahepatic bile duct cancer in female individuals (2·05 [1·23–3·44]).
The researchers believe one cause (of several possibles) may be obesity, at least for certain types of cancer for which it has been shown to be a contributing causal factor. Obesity has been increasing in the young.
UPI describes the findings thus:
Researchers broke the data down into five-year birth intervals from 1920 to 1990, and analyzed how cancer risk changed between birth cohorts. Incidence rates increased with each successive birth cohort since 1920 for 17 of 34 cancers, researchers found.
Hat tip to Instapundit for the links.
