Early onset: why is cancer on the rise in younger people?

早期发病:为何年轻人癌症发病率上升?

Babbage from The Economist

2025-05-08

38 分钟

单集简介 ...

The number of people under 50 being diagnosed with cancer has risen dramatically in recent decades. Many cases cannot be explained by a family history of disease or any lifestyle factors—such as smoking, drinking or unhealthy foods—that would otherwise put the individuals at a higher risk. Explaining this rise in early-onset cancer has therefore presented a conundrum. But clues are now emerging—is there some kind of exposure in the environment that could perhaps explain some of the cases? Host: Alok Jha, The Economist's science and technology editor. Contributors: Ann Young, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in her 30s; Mike Stratton of the Wellcome Sanger Institute; Slavea Chankova, The Economist's health-care correspondent. Thanks also to Meg Bernhard, who wrote about Ann's story in The Economist. Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts. Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.
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单集文稿 ...

  • It was January of 2023.

  • I felt a little lump in my left breast.

  • And I think it was right before a menstrual cycle, so I didn't really think much of it.

  • Anne Young is a doctor.

  • In her early 30s, she was living in Boston, Massachusetts.

  • She was active, strong and healthy.

  • She didn't drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes.

  • and she had no family history of cancer.

  • I'm a physician, so I knew that most lumps in breasts are benign,

  • especially in young women, without any sort of prior history, with a pretty healthy lifestyle.

  • So I just kind of tucked it away, and I thought to myself, like, oh,

  • I should probably feel for that again in a couple months, see what it's doing.

  • And then it was April 4th that I felt it again.

  • kind of feels harder.

  • And then that night in the shower, I was feeling it again.

  • And actually at this point felt some lumps in my armpit.

  • And it was actually at that point I knew I had cancer

  • because there's really nothing else that causes both a lump in a breast as well as local lymph nodes like that without any sort of trauma or infection or inflammatory condition.

  • And so I knew in that moment that something was deeply, profoundly wrong.

  • Breast cancer normally affects middle-aged and older women.