The increase in the incidence of cancer in people under the age of 50 is a puzzle for scientists. And while the data in this direction is constantly increasing, the scientific community is unable to answer precisely what is at fault. The environment, pollution, food, lifestyle, or DNA.
Is there a specific profile of people who get cancer at young ages? Or does malice make no distinctions? And if it does, what kind are they anyway?
Dora Psaltopoulou, professor of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at the EKPA School of Medicine, made a brave attempt to approach the issue as much as possible and with the existing knowledge.
“In general, cancers are largely due to both our lifestyle and the environment. But this happens the older we get, because an aggravating factor needs to act for many years to lead an organism to cancer. Example if someone smokes, it can lead to many types of cancer. Also if he is obese, or has an unhealthy diet, or overconsumes alcohol.”
The lifestyle behind the cancers?
Indeed, Ms. Psaltopoulou admits, speaking to FM Agency, many studies have been found that find an increase in cancer incidence at younger ages, and specifically an increase in certain types of cancer, especially in the gastrointestinal tract. But why is this? “There might be many reasons and we haven’t clarified them all.
To a lesser extent it is due to lifestyle, because young people have not had the decades it takes to mutate. It may also be due to the better diagnostic tests we now have, but not to a large extent.
There is a possibility that it is also due to the pollution of the environment and this is a very large analysis that is currently being done by the scientific community, to determine to what extent it can affect the occurrence of cancer, either through the food chain, or through the pollution of the atmosphere .
And it is true that in some people genetic material leads them to a predisposition to develop various types of cancer. In general, we might say that even the sun, when we have a large dose of sunshine, increases the possibility of melanoma. Also, there are people who have been ill at a very young age and have a greater chance of developing cancer.
But in most cases there is no culprit gene from what science knows to date, so there are many cases of healthy people among us who are not doing anything unhealthy, and eventually unfortunately develop some cancer, without any aggravating factors that we know of so far.
Why can the development of science in 20-30 years show that there are some specific genes, or specific behaviors, or some radiations that we do not know, lead to carcinogenesis, even at a young age.”
27% increase in mortality in people under 50
The increase in the occurrence of cancers in people under 50 is not a recent phenomenon, according to the professor, as she says it has been found in studies of the last 20-30 years. “Over the last three decades, there has been a gradual increase in new diagnoses of 80% in people under 50 according to a recently published study. Correspondingly, mortality in those young ages under 50 increased by 27%.’
Mrs. Psaltopoulou even points out that cancer as a disease is not very common, but even at these ages it is one of the main causes of death. “However, since we cannot predict, especially for young people, who is more likely to develop cancer, at least it is important to “listen” to our bodies
. That is, in case we see any symptomatology, which we did not have before, we should immediately refer to our personal doctor. That is, if we see bleeding from somewhere, a change in a mole, gastrointestinal disturbances, a persistent pain, a lump in the breast, a fever or tithes that remain constant, some headaches, unexplained weight loss, we should go to the doctor, so that to perform diagnostic laboratory imaging tests on us, in order to rule out the existence of malignancy. And don’t forget that the sooner we diagnose a disease, or cancer, the more effective the treatment we receive and can reach a complete cure. Therefore quick diagnosis for effective treatment”.
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