(Image via newscientist.com)
Volunteer Writer: Akshit Bagga
Email: abagga@umassd.edu
In a recent study presented at the San Diego Convention Center, researchers find that younger generations are at a higher risk of being diagnosed with cancer because they are aging faster than usual.
A recent annual American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) meeting occurred in San Diego, where oncologists discussed the global trends of increased cancer diagnosis in young adults. Researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO, suggested accelerated aging drives these patterns.
Accelerated aging is the phenomenon when someone’s biological age is more than the person’s chronological/birth age. This phenomenon of aging faster increases the risk of cancer-related tumors in young individuals. In the study, cancer patients who were less than 55 years of age were categorized under early onset cancer.
The researchers analyzed data from the UK Biobank database, which stored information about 148,724 cancer patients. Overall, they used nine different blood biomarker attributes, comparing each of them with the patient’s birth age.
The biomarkers used in the research are albumin, alkaline phosphatase, creatinine, C-reactive protein, glucose, mean corpuscular volume, red cell distribution width, white blood cell count, and lymphocyte proportion.
As per the findings, a person with a “higher biological age had a 42% increased risk of early-onset cancer in the lungs, a 22% higher risk of early-onset cancer relating to gastrointestinal complications and a 36% increased chance of early onset uterine cancer.”
Researchers claimed that people born after 1965 have a 17% increased likelihood of being diagnosed with cancer due to accelerated aging phenomena when compared with the ones born before that.
Ruiyi Tian, a graduate researcher at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis who was invested in the research, said, “Multiple cancer types are becoming increasingly common among younger adults in the United States and globally. Understanding the factors driving this increase will be key to improve the prevention or early detection of cancers in younger and future generations.”
According to a report published earlier this year by the American Cancer Society, the prevalence rates of colorectal cancer in adults in their 20s, 30s, and 40s are rising rapidly, while the cancer rates in people in their 65s are declining.
Tian mentioned, “Accumulating evidence suggests that the younger generations may be aging more swiftly than anticipated, likely due to earlier exposure to various risk factors and environmental insults.” Tian added, “However, the impact of accelerated aging on early-onset cancer development remains unclear.”
While trends in increased cancer rates in young adults have been seen for a very long time, it is only now that researchers have a lead to justify the factors behind these soaring numbers.
Jack Jacoub, a board-certified medical oncologist and medical director of MemorialCare Cancer Institute at Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, CA, spoke to MNT, “The cellular aging concept is something that people should be aware of because it’s increasingly becoming a very hot topic in our fields. The story behind cellular aging is growing, and people should be familiar with it because it has some implications not only in cancer development but also (in) human diseases in general.”
One popular question associated with this study is whether we can slow down biological aging. An oncology professional based in New Jersey told MNT that the increase in early-onset cancer is likely lifestyle-related.
Almost half the cancers are linked to lifestyle factors such as obesity, sedentary lifestyle, smoking, alcohol, lack of exercise, and stress-related factors.
Improving dietary habits and regular physical activity will considerably contribute to slowing biological aging in young adults.