[HN Gopher] Rising rates of colorectal cancer found in nearly al...
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Rising rates of colorectal cancer found in nearly all age groups
Author : randycupertino
Score : 51 points
Date : 2026-10-28 19:15 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.uchicagomedicine.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.uchicagomedicine.org)
| randycupertino wrote:
| Study shows US colorectal cancer rates are rising again in almost
| all age groups after 20+ years of decline. NEJM Evidence study
| finds rates climbing in every age group even when screening is
| high.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| The US also happens to be a country with a notoriously poor
| lifestyle and equally poor diet involving foods full of
| additives either not used or banned elsewhere.
|
| And that's before we get to the subject of the US healthcare
| system.
|
| Of course colorectal cancer has numerous causes but it is worth
| considering that when reading the somewhat clickbaity headline.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| That is the most factually correct and constrained headline
| _and_ GP comment I 've seen in a while. Both are literally
| true as written, and contain no anecdotal, cautionary, or
| extrapolated suggestions.
| margalabargala wrote:
| That's not necessarily the cause here.
|
| While rates in the US may be rising, they are still below
| countries like Japan, Italy, France, and the UK.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > While rates in the US may be rising, they are still below
| countries like Japan, Italy, France, and the UK.
|
| Average life expectancy in Japan is 85 with average 88
| female and 82 male.
|
| Meanwhile US is 79 (avg), 81 (f), 76 (m).
|
| So I suspect diet and lifestyle is still more likely to
| kill you in the US.
| hparadiz wrote:
| If the rates went down from 2000 to 2022 and then had a
| small bump into 2023 isn't that just statistical noise?
| reenorap wrote:
| Deaths from opioids over the last 10+ years has really
| affected the life expectancy in the US. But no doubt that
| Japanese lifestyle is much better than the American
| lifestyle overall, especially at the older ages.
| runako wrote:
| What does this add to a discussion of a change in
| colorectal cancer rates?
| selfmodruntime wrote:
| All of those countries (except the UK) have a ton of people
| who are cigarette smokers. For comparison, a third of
| french adults smoke tobacco. Most US adults who use
| nicotine don't do so via tobacco, with Japan (the third
| lowest in the group) having double the cigarette smokers
| than the US and France having 3-4 times as many.
| legulere wrote:
| Early-onset case numbers also rise in Europe though.
| b800h wrote:
| Happening in the UK too though.
| gib444 wrote:
| > a country with a notoriously poor lifestyle and equally
| poor diet involving foods full of additives
|
| Is mostly true for the UK too
|
| ---
|
| I saw a 'diabetes isn't your fault' campaign poster at my
| GP surgery today. I shook my head! (no mentioning T1 vs T2,
| so the message is obvious)
| bcvvvy wrote:
| My ex wife's diabetes was definitely her fault.
| dofm wrote:
| If poor nutrition is the cause (not obviously the case)
| then it's fair to say our diet in the UK is not so far
| behind the USA in terms of the availability of unhealthy
| foods. We maybe eat a bit less of it, but we have rising
| obesity levels. We don't have anywhere near the same number
| of morbidly obese or super-obese people, but towards the
| merely very overweight end of the scale we've probably
| caught up.
|
| Probably catching more cases in screening, though.
|
| There is an obvious factor for cases in 2023, which is that
| a lot of backlogged cases from 2021 and 2022 will be
| turning up, and the mere presence of a backlog means
| delayed diagnosis of newer cases. Even if COVID itself
| doesn't cause cancers or make them worse (and that's being
| studied), the pandemic did.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > The US...
|
| Rates are rising in other countries, too. Global phenomenon.
|
| The rate of cancer deaths is actually growing faster in
| several other regions like the UK
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42331356/
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| The food theory doesn't align with the fact that it declined
| from 2000 - 2022...
|
| "The data showed that the age-adjusted incidence rate fell
| from 55.2 per 100,000 in 2000 to 36.7 in 2022, then rose to
| 38.3 in 2023.
|
| This is the first time that we have seen an increase in the
| overall rate since in more than 20 years,"
|
| Please for the love of all things, stop the kneejerk
| attribution... or at least read the article first.
| parineum wrote:
| You're third sentence is funny in contrast with the first
| two.
|
| The "notoriously poor lifestyle" is a oft repeated meme and
| you're blanket implications of "additives" being causal
| without naming anything specific or having any sort of
| evidence supplied. Relying, instead, on the common
| "knowledge" that's memed around the internet as being self-
| evident.
|
| The US also has the best healthcare in the world, it's just
| expensive. People from all over the world come here for
| treatment.
| weezing wrote:
| *In the US
| bubblemoth wrote:
| https://www.wcrf.org/preventing-cancer/cancer-statistics/col...
|
| I'm actually surprised by the placement of some of these
| countries. I assumed Japan would be much lower.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > I assumed Japan would be much lower.
|
| Maybe it is per-se. Overall the Japanese diet is
| substantially more healthy than the US one. However Japan is
| also quite a white rice heavy diet on average, so comparable
| to the US's preponderance for processed bread. So if you're
| not careful in Japan you can quite easily go days without
| much fibre - it is much easier to get a healthy meal in
| Japan, but its also easy to get poor meals in Japan (e.g.
| 7-11 snacks) !
|
| However the thing about Japan is they have an aggressive
| annual health screening programme which is mandated by law
| for all employed individuals (twice per year for those
| working in hazardous environment).
|
| So the more interesting question for Japan might be in
| relation to early diagnosis and associated outcomes. I
| suspect both would be materially better than in the US but I
| haven't gone looking for the data.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Measured rates are not as straightforward as they seem
|
| It's always a mix of the "true rate" vs screening/detection
| rates vs "dying of other things before detection" rate
| Madmallard wrote:
| U.S. is runaway corruption
|
| So it's not really a surprise our food and drink quality and
| safety would suffer alongside that
|
| It's probably going to get worse
| CodingJeebus wrote:
| To be fair, food quality standards in the US have lagged places
| like Europe for many years. This is certainly not a new
| problem.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| Also the rates are rising globally. This isn't an exclusive
| US problem.
| qliqo wrote:
| Just a random thought, but has there been any research into
| dishwasher tablets/cleaning agents used in dishwashers? People
| are ingesting that, everywhere, all of the time
| randycupertino wrote:
| My theory is PFAS. https://research.uky.edu/news/markey-study-
| links-forever-che...
| myth_drannon wrote:
| Dishwashers are not a new thing, so there should not be a
| correlation.
| MyHonestOpinon wrote:
| Perhaps it is the new detergents? I don't know.
| myth_drannon wrote:
| The popular brands have extremely strong smell and I assume
| very strong chemicals. We use "Attitude" that supposed to
| be milder.
| globular-toast wrote:
| "Should not be a correlation" is a weird thing to say. A
| quick glance shows dishwasher use has been steadily
| increasing over time.
| goda90 wrote:
| I stopped using rinse aid in my dishwasher after seeing this or
| a similar study:
| https://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(22)01477-4/ful...
| hobo123 wrote:
| Ouch. Thanks for the pointer.
| kooi wrote:
| Thanks for the reference.
|
| From the abstract:
|
| The alcohol ethoxylates present in the rinse aid were
| identified as the culprit component causing the epithelial
| inflammation and barrier damage.
| reenorap wrote:
| My theory is energy drinks which contain taurine that actually
| promotes cancer growth.
| jongjong wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised. A lot of people don't even rinse off
| the soap.
| im3w1l wrote:
| The most striking thing in that data for me is how low India is.
| zetazzed wrote:
| This includes only diagnosed cases of colon cancer, so if India
| has much less screening and fewer diagnostic opportunities,
| that will greatly reduce its score. But it is still a striking
| number!!
| b5n wrote:
| I have no idea if it makes a difference in reference to the
| study, but plant based diets are significantly more common
| there.
| globular-toast wrote:
| What data? The article only seems to be about the US?
|
| Indian diets are very different from the average American diet.
| Loads of vegetables. Even non-vegetarians get tons of fibre and
| are often eating 20-30 different plants in a day. Most of it
| fresh too.
| zetazzed wrote:
| Important context in the article:
|
| "The data showed that the age-adjusted incidence rate fell from
| 55.2 per 100,000 in 2000 to 36.7 in 2022, then rose to 38.3 in
| 2023."
|
| If you would like to advance a theory that this is because of a
| specific environmental change, your theory should cope with the
| fact that the rate was MUCH higher in 2000 and the rise described
| here is is 2023. Increased screening is said to be a likely
| culprit in this case for middle-aged adult prevalence but not for
| older adult prevalence, because screening has increased somewhat
| in the middle aged groups.
|
| I am personally dealing with colon cancer, and one of the
| incredibly annoying things about the awful disease is the number
| of truly clueless people who use it to advance some culinary
| agenda they believe in without evidence.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > If you would like to advance a theory that this is because of
| a specific environmental change
|
| It _probably_ is, but it could be _anything._ For all we know,
| (joke,) it could be a pesticide with traces present in salads
| and fresh fruit, or exposure to a cleaning chemical in public
| transportation.
|
| But the bigger issue is that the people pushing these theories
| are pushing them _on moral reasons;_ IE, making an unfair claim
| that colon cancer is on the rise because people have immoral
| lifestyles. IE, from eating poorly or the multitude of other
| holier-than-thou lifestyle claims at the tip of their tongue.
|
| Personally, my money is that we find out that regularly holding
| in farts increases the probability of colon cancer, and that we
| need a public health campaign to fart in public.
| pheewma wrote:
| This one took a turn but point taken. You see similar
| arguments for a great many ailments (sperm count and carpets
| comes to mind). You can't well run randomized control trials
| on every plastic, additive, or manufacturing process. It
| feels futile to even start.
| louprado wrote:
| I looked through your comment history to ensure you haven't
| already answered this. But what made you get tested ? Did you
| have risk factors ? No problem if you'd rather not share.
|
| Related, I was told by a doctor to get screened after turning
| 50. But a reasonable self-estimate given all my risk factors
| puts my chances of having colon cancer at 1 in 10000. A
| colonoscopy has a false positive of ~2%[0] for my demographic.
| Meaning if I get a positive result, it's actually ~200 times
| more likely that I don't have cancer. It's hard to justify a
| screening given those odds and the 99%+ chance I will waste my
| time treating and worrying about a disease I don't have. My
| guess is an insurance company wouldn't cover a colonoscopy for
| those reasons.
|
| [0]https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7147410/
| nostrademons wrote:
| I just had my first colonoscopy at 45 - they lowered the
| guideline recently, as the article mentioned.
|
| The link you give is for colon cancer blood tests.
| Colonoscopies themself are basically definitive, because if
| they see something suspicious they will snip it and send it
| to the lab for biopsy. I had one such "suspicious polyp" and
| it turned out it wasn't a polyp at all, just normal
| intestinal tissue they mistook. There's your false positive.
| But the risks and long-term consequences are basically nil,
| the intestine heals itself in a week or two.
|
| It's a very unpleasant procedure (the prep, not the procedure
| itself), but it's also very low risk and effective at
| catching colon cancer cases early when they can still be
| treated.
| runako wrote:
| One thing I learned about colonoscopy is that it is not
| _only_ a test. I understand that the removal of polyps is a
| cancer-reducing mechanism in addition to being a diagnostic.
| Less invasive tests do not have this property.
| officeplant wrote:
| >But what made you get tested ?
|
| Tested at 37, because occasional bloody stool. Found a few
| polyps but no cancer. Still had to fight with insurance to
| keep my costs below $2500 for the whole experience. Still
| upset the doctor thought I was joking when I requested a DVD
| or Memory stick with the tour of my insides on it.
| nostrademons wrote:
| So the processed meat -> colorectal cancer link is actually a
| textbook example for explaining what statistical & scientific
| concepts mean.
|
| Processed meat is a known Group 1 carcinogen, in the same
| category as asbestos, tobacco smoke, and plutonium. Carcinogens
| are grouped by the _strength of scientific evidence_ on them,
| not by how hazardous they are. In this case, there are abundant
| studies with solid methodology that show a link between
| consuming nitrites in processed meat and a higher risk of
| cancer, and we also understand how the process works at a
| molecular level.
|
| This shows _how well we understand the link_ , not _how strong
| the link is_. And it turns out that processed meat is a very
| minor carcinogen. When you average the studies together, the
| hazard ratio for someone eating 50g of processed meat per day,
| over an 85 year lifetime, over somebody who eats no processed
| meat is about 1.18. That means that folks in the former group
| are about 18% more likely to get colon cancer than folks in the
| latter group. By contrast, the hazard ratio for cigarette
| smoking is about 20x (smokers are 2000% more likely to get lung
| cancer than non-smokers), for asbestos exposure it 's about
| 35-45x (industrial asbestos workers without PPA develop
| mesothelioma at a rate 3500-4500% greater than the general
| public), and plutonium exposure is about 7-50x for a single
| unprotected exposure.
|
| There's a further piece to the statistical puzzle, and that's
| _base rates_. Colorectal cancer is relatively rare, with a
| lifetime incidence (again assuming an 85y lifespan) of about
| 7%. Combined with the 18% hazard ratio, that means a diet full
| of processed meats increases your lifetime risk of colon cancer
| by about 1%. There are far worse activities you could be doing.
|
| https://www.iarc.who.int/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Monograp...
|
| A related concept is the Prop65 warning labels in California.
| If you've ever been to the restrooms in the SFO airport, you
| might notice that there's a warning label of "This restroom
| contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause
| cancer." These are pretty ubiquitous, you'll see them
| everywhere else in California too, like on new cars. Are you
| going to get cancer just because you transferred through SFO or
| LAX? No. But the list of chemicals that have scientifically
| demonstrated carcinogenicity is long, and the good people of
| California don't really make a distinction between minor risks
| and major risks.
|
| Whether the known carcinogenicity of processed meats is behind
| the uptake in colon cancer rates is a separate scientific
| question. You would need data on processed meat consumption at
| a population level, over time, to see if that epidemiologically
| explains the increase we've been seeing. I don't know if this
| data exists and kinda suspect it would go the other way, but
| that's what the scientific method is for.
| spider-mario wrote:
| Re: base rate, https://xkcd.com/1252/
| wonder_er wrote:
| maybe it's meat overall, and not exclusively processed meat?
| i was vegetarian for many years though and don't trust myself
| to make guesses anymore on this. I do think there's gotta be
| a bunch of bad stuff that comes from eating all the unhappy
| animals/eggs from them/milk from them.
| knottn wrote:
| Featured article says they are looking into "environmental
| chemical exposures as a possible culprit". A rise since 2019
| due to "chemical exposure" make food and water pollution, and
| thus diet, plausible explanations no?
| redanddead wrote:
| It's the food
|
| This isn't some mystery, this isn't happening in a vacuum. There
| are correlated trends like rising profits of the food industry,
| food becoming plasticized. Everyone's fat now
| declan_roberts wrote:
| The rise is global.
| teiferer wrote:
| > It's the food
|
| Your sibling comment from 1 minute earlier:
|
| > I am personally dealing with colon cancer, and one of the
| incredibly annoying things about the awful disease is the
| number of truly clueless people who use it to advance some
| culinary agenda they believe in without evidence.
| redanddead wrote:
| There's a lack of fiber
|
| There's an overconsumption of sugar
|
| Sugar is awesome for cancer
| TFNA wrote:
| The need to eat more fiber, and the dearth of fiber in most
| processed food, is something always mentioned in writing on
| colon cancer incidence by actual researchers. I could
| understand your post if one were posting in defence of some
| particular fad diet versus another fad diet, but saying
| merely "Its the food" is not in any way controversial.
| orangecat wrote:
| So the food got better from 2000 to 2022 and only since then
| has gotten worse?
| Alacart wrote:
| How do you square that with this quote in the article?
|
| "The data showed that the age-adjusted incidence rate fell from
| 55.2 per 100,000 in 2000 to 36.7 in 2022, then rose to 38.3 in
| 2023."
|
| Were more people fat back in 2000? Was the food worse? Though I
| don't really doubt that the food industry and trends like you
| mentioned do contribute, that stat also seems to directly
| contradict the hypothesis.
| redanddead wrote:
| You and orangecat are using a false binary
|
| That's not how science works
|
| Show me correlating graphs to the rise in colorectal cancer.
| There has to be a meta-analysis about this, my money is on
| food being a major contributing factor
| fph wrote:
| > my money is on food being a major contributing factor
|
| That's not how science works either.
| nostrademons wrote:
| It's milk consumption:
|
| https://tylervigen.com/spurious/custom_correlation/757_new-
| c...
|
| No wait it's GMO use in corn grown in Texas:
|
| https://tylervigen.com/spurious/custom_correlation/758_new-
| c...
|
| No wait it's the popularity of the first name Devon:
|
| https://tylervigen.com/spurious/custom_correlation/759_new-
| c...
|
| No wait it's the number of postal service machine operators
| in Texas:
|
| https://tylervigen.com/spurious/custom_correlation/760_new-
| c...
|
| Pretty certain this isn't how science works either. Be
| careful mistaking correlation for causation, and in relying
| on intuitive hunches.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| It's not the food, it's from holding farts in too long.
| mbones wrote:
| Only 5% of American adults meet the U.S. daily RDAs for fiber.
| solfox wrote:
| I don't buy their explaining away the effects of COVID by
| excluding 2020-2021. It was incredibly difficult to access
| routine medical care (especially colonoscopies!) during COVID. A
| post-COVID bump should be expected in the 1-2 years after
| normalization of medical care, when many people had previously
| skipped screenings. Let's see if the rise continues in 2024+
| before drawing any conclusions.
| mft_ wrote:
| (It doesn't change your point, but amusingly) I'm 97% sure I
| caught my first COVID infection from... the admin/consenting
| clinic visit prior to a colonoscopy. :)
| orangecat wrote:
| Yes. Also exercise reduces the risk, and COVID has plausibly
| caused a long-term reduction in exercise levels.
| nostrademons wrote:
| I'd expect increased colon cancer rates due to COVID for the
| rest of the 2020s, simply because screening is usually every
| 5-10 years and people probably just skipped their 2020-2022
| appointment, giving more time for cancers to grow undetected.
| It's sorta like how measles is now epidemic because so many
| parents skipped their vaccinations from 2020-2022. It takes
| years for public health consequences of interruptions in
| medical care to show up.
| ORDINAND_PIZZA wrote:
| just get the colonoscopy, it's really not that bad. if ya haven't
| had one yet, i wrote this for u (30 second read of my
| experience):
|
| https://mfelix.org/stories/just-get-the-colonoscopy
| orangecat wrote:
| Good piece, and ditto. Really the worst part for me was just
| not being able to eat for 24 hours before; the actual procedure
| was painless.
| TFNA wrote:
| I had the colonoscopy without anasthesia, it was over in 5
| minutes with less pain than almost any visit to the dentist.
| The experience made me baffled at the insistence on total
| anasthesia, and the assumption the unanasthesized procedure is
| harrowing, that is often reported by people in private-
| insurance countries like the USA. So, I agree, if you need the
| procedure because of age or family history, just get it done.
|
| I will say, the drink prescribed by my own GP tasted just fine,
| like any electrolyte sports drink in powdered form, so I think
| you were unlucky there!
| mft_ wrote:
| Seconded.
|
| Although everyone's experience varies a little - for me, the
| prep is quite miserable, not because of the obvious, but
| because I feel very dehydrated/hung over for hours during it.
| Conversely, a friend who has relatively regular colonoscopies
| doesn't share this at all.
| memcg wrote:
| And continue to get them as advised. I have had four and was
| told to return in three years. My wife and one of my sisters
| died of colon cancer. One of my sons just had his first
| colonoscopy at 32.
| Aurornis wrote:
| Colorectal cancer rates are increasing globally, but the data in
| the older groups needs to take into account changes in screening
| ages
|
| > The authors saw the sharpest increase in incidence rates among
| the 45-49-year-old age group, with an increase of 12.76% annually
| from 2019-2023. They said that this increase is likely driven by
| more people undergoing colorectal cancer screening after national
| recommendations lowered the age to begin screening from 50 to 45.
|
| So the rates for 45-50 year olds can't be directly compared in
| the US.
|
| The strange part about the change in colorectal cancer rates
| around the world is that it's showing a large increase in much
| younger people. I've read some studies where the sampled time
| period showed cancer rates declining for elderly people while
| they increased for very young people.
| ortusdux wrote:
| How are screening methods these days? As I understand it,
| colonoscopies care a small risk, which tends to cause doctors to
| not recommend them for fully asymptomatic individuals.
| Aboutplants wrote:
| I'm starting to be convinced it's due to 100 different reasons,
| but each of those reasons is due to people doing things the
| extreme.
|
| Eating too much processed food? There are studies showing an
| increase in risk. Sit too much every day? Ditto. Long distance
| running? When taken to the extreme it increases colon cancer risk
| (recent research)
|
| A measured, balanced lifestyle regarding your activity and habits
| is the best thing you can do to put yourself in a good position
| to avoid diseases or health complications.
|
| My doctor's favorite phrase :"Here is your prescription - Eat a
| little better and move around a little bit. You'll outlive your
| enemies"
| wonder_er wrote:
| i bet it'll end up that eating animal flesh or drinking their
| secretions messes with the body quickly, compared to eating the
| plant proteins directly.
|
| "milk" is a cow eating soy and grain, intended for a baby cow,
| but it's mostly made out of the same plant that the cow ate.
|
| "meat" is cooked animal muscle that has been built more slowly
| than milk, but is also built out of the plants ingested by that
| baby animal.
|
| virtually all 'meat' is made out of animals that could be easily
| considered to be babies of that kind of animal. :(
|
| anyway, that doing bad things like this is bad for everyone who
| does it is not surprising.
| addaon wrote:
| > i bet
|
| What terms do you propose? What adjudication?
| durpleDrank wrote:
| Baseless conspiracy theory; its because we are keeping our phones
| in our pockets and worse, holding game controllers etc near that
| area.
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