Colorectal Cancer Rate Down Overall, But Up Among Younger Americans

The rate of colorectal cancer, which claims the lives of about 50,000 Americans each year, is dropping overall but has increased among adults younger than 50, new research says.

A new study published in the medical journal Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention linked the increase in the cancer among younger Americans to increased rates of obesity and changes in what and how people eat, most notably the increased popularity of fast food, which includes more meat and milk than healthier diets.

Researchers examined cancer statistics for people between the ages of 20 and 49 from 1992 to 2005 and found that among women, the rate of colorectal cancer increased 1.6 percent annually. Among men, the rate went up 1.5 percent per year. The study accounted for differences in the gender, race and ethnicity, age, and stages of cancer diagnoses among the research participants.

The news was even worse for people between the ages of 20 and 29, who posted increases of 5.2 percent per year for men and 5.6 percent annually for women, researchers said.

Colorectal cancer is the term used to refer to cancer that develops in the colon or the rectum. The individual cancers may be called separately as either colon or rectal cancer, depending on where in the body they form.

Approximately 108,070 new cases of colon cancer and 40,740 new cases of rectal cancer were diagnosed in the U.S. in 2008, according to the American Cancer Society.

The death rate from colorectal cancers has been dropping for about two decades, a decline experts attribute to increased and early screening for the disease. As a result, as many as one million Americans are survivors of forms of colorectal cancer, the ACS said.

No related posts.