Since the 1990s, the number of cancer cases has been on the rise among people aged 30 and over, according to a 2022 study by experts from Harvard University.
Cases of breast, colon, esophagus, gallbladder, kidney, liver, pancreas, prostate, stomach and thyroid cancer are on the rise in people over the age of 30 at 50 years old. A rise that is “unusual”, according to the Dr Arif Kamal, patient manager at the American Cancer Society.
“Cancer is generally thought of as an age-related disease, because you give yourself enough time to have some sort of genetic accident,” he explains.
Due to environmental toxins and not always healthy lifestyle choices, cells become damaged over decades, which can lead to cancerous mutation.
Smoking, alcohol consumption, air pollution, obesity, lack of physical activity and a diet low in fruits and vegetables are key risk factors for cancer, according to the World Health Organization. health. And if several elements are present, there is a higher risk that a person will develop cancer early, according to scientists at Harvard University.
“You don’t need 65 years of eating fried or processed meat as your main diet, for example. What you need is regarding 20 years [de ce type de consommation]and then you start seeing stomach and colon-rectal cancers, even at a young age,” adds Kamal.
The importance of getting tested
The most common cancers – notably those of the breast, intestine, stomach and prostate – are of genetic origin.
It’s for this reason that knowing your family’s health history is essential, according to Dr.r Kamal.
“When I talk to patients, they say, ‘Oh, yeah, grandma had cancer. There are two questions I want to know the answer to, namely: at what age was the cancer diagnosed, and what type of cancer was it? I need to know if she had cancer in her 30s or 60s because that determines the level of risk. But often they don’t know it,” he says.
