Researchers have found that young people around the world are getting many different kinds of cancer at alarmingly high rates. And as the diagnoses of celebrities and public figures like Kate Middleton, Chadwick Boseman, Dwyane Wade, and Olivia Munn bring mass attention to the issue, scientists are racing to answer a question on the minds of many outside the medical profession: Why is cancer, historically a disease of old age, increasingly striking people in the primes of their lives?
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00:00In this week's Time Magazine, I wrote about how researchers have found that young people
00:05from around the world are getting many different types of cancer at alarming rates, and the
00:10diagnoses of celebrities and public figures are bringing mass attention to the issue.
00:15Scientists are now trying to answer a big question.
00:18Why is cancer, which is traditionally seen as a disease of old age, increasingly striking
00:23people in the primes of their lives?
00:25Cancers affecting digestive organs, including the colon, rectum, pancreas, and stomach,
00:31are surging particularly dramatically within this age group.
00:34The numbers are scary, but I spoke with researchers who are figuring out why this is happening.
00:39There's at least one comforting explanation—more accurate imaging, which leads to more cancers
00:45detected.
00:46And some screening recommendations have recently been modified to include younger adults.
00:51Colonoscopies, for example, have recently been recommended starting at age 45 in the
00:55U.S., down from age 50 previously.
00:58If more younger adults get screened, more younger adults get diagnosed.
01:02And many researchers are working to understand other reasons for the uptick.
01:06Shuji Ogino, a pathologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, is trying to
01:11solve the puzzle using a technique that he pioneered.
01:15Ogino and his team put cancer tissue under a powerful microscope and look at the different
01:19types of cells in the tumor.
01:21Then, they use AI to search reams of scientific literature for environmental exposures, lifestyle
01:27habits, or health conditions linked to those particular cellular traits.
01:31Treatments are evolving to deal with younger patients as well, since they have unique needs.
01:37One ongoing experimental trial at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York
01:41City uses medication to coax a patient's immune system into recognizing and destroying
01:47cancerous cells.
01:48Ideally sparing them from surgery and therapies that leave patients with lifelong physical
01:53side effects.
01:55In some small, preliminary studies, it has shown a 100% success rate.
01:59It's important to remember that cancer is still overwhelmingly an older person's
02:04disease.
02:05As of 2025, 88% of people in the U.S. diagnosed with cancer were 50 or older, and 59% or 65
02:12or older, according to data from the American Cancer Society.
02:16But the demographics are shifting.
02:18The only age group in the U.S. for which cancer risk is increasing right now is people under
02:2350.
02:24Medical guidance on reducing your risk of developing cancer remains the same.
02:29Eat right, exercise, wear sunscreen, don't smoke, and get the recommended screenings
02:34regularly.