Gen X and millennials at greater risk of 17 types of cancer compared to previous generations – here’s what you need to know

This isn’t the first study to show certain types of cancer (such as breast cancer) are on the rise in younger generations. Gorodenkoff/ Shutterstock by Sarah Allinson, Lancaster University A worrying new study by the American Cancer Society has revealed that generation X and millennials are at more risk of developing many types of cancer than their predecessors. This is in line with a growing body of evidence which shows that some cancers, like those of the bowel, breast and pancreas, are becoming more common in young people. This new study looked at data from almost 24 million cancer patients collected from US cancer registries over a 20-year period, beginning in 2000. The research team sorted the data according to cancer type, sex and birth cohort – in other words, the five-year period during which they’d been born. They also carried out a statistical adjustment to take into account the fact that, for everyone, the older you get the more likely you are to develop cancer. By analysing rates of the 34 most commonly occurring cancers (those which had at least 200,000 cases over the two decades) the study provides the most definitive evidence yet for a changing picture of...