Cancer rates are falling around the world, especially for men—except for among younger people. Here is the best guess as to why

[R]esearchers have found that young people around the world are getting many different kinds of cancer at alarmingly high rates…Why is cancer, historically a disease of old age, increasingly striking people in the primes of their lives?

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There’s no shortage of theories about what those may be. Many scientists point to modern diets, which tend to be heavy on potentially carcinogenic products—including ultra-processed foods, red meat, and alcohol…Alterations to the gut microbiome via diet, or perhaps exposure to drugs like antibiotics, have also been implicated.

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Other researchers blame the microplastics littering our environment and leaching into our food and water supplies, some of which, according to a 2024 study, have even shown up in cancer patients’ tumors. Other environmental factors could also be to blame, given that everything from cosmetics to food packaging contains substances that many researchers aren’t convinced are safe. Even our near constant exposure to artificial light could be messing with normal biological rhythms in ways that have profound health consequences, some research suggests.