Differences in cancer rates among adults born between 1920 and 1990

For those not keeping up, we now have commercialized blood-based screening tools designed for early detection of multiple cancers by analyzing cfDNA methylation patterns. They can identify over 50 types of cancer, have a specificity of 99.5% and can accurately predict the cancer’s origin.<p>The biggest push-back from the medical profession is diagnosing cancers that are not clinically relevant and treatable (eg. A cancer may be detected 15 years before clinically relevant in some cases to my understanding). There is also a cost benefit dynamic of increasing preventative screening, for example lowering the prescribed age for breast screening would save lives but may carry costs for nations or corporations that are unacceptable.<p>Detection is being solved in some incredible ways. To my understanding moonshot catch all treatments are mostly a pipe dream given the diversity of disease under the “cancer” umbrella, and lifestyle based prevention is proving a way bigger factor than historically acknowledged - an inconvenient challenge in addressing the issue societally.<p>It is an endlessly interesting field to keep a track of, and I believe more entrepreneurs should be working on prevention topics!

Do they somehow control for changing (improving) detection capabilities? I did see this mentioned:<p>&gt; Additionally, the increased use of diagnostic testing and overdiagnosis probably contributed to the rise in incidence rates of cancers that are highly sensitive to diagnostic scrutiny<p>So they did consider it, but I am not sure if&#x2F;how they attempted to control for it.

I recently had a cancerous thyroid removed so I&#x27;ve been trying to learn more about it. In this article I learned that the incididence has been skyrocketing. The same chart has a flat mortality trend, confirming what my doctor said about this being one of the better cancers to have if you&#x27;re going to get one. Some doctors want to stop calling the most common type a cancer and start calling it a non-cancerous neoplasm.<p>But why the large monotonic rise in incidence? Are we somehow getting even less iodine in our food? I&#x27;m supplementing with it now, wish I started long ago.<p>It could be part of the problem that we discourage salt consumption. Salt binds with halides like bromide and fluoride, which compete for iodine receptors.<p>The same problem behind thyroid cancer may also contribute to the obesity epidemic by damaging energy metabolism via hypothyroidism. I almost hope so, since then my thyroid hormone replacement may help with weight loss. Or perhaps causation somehow flows in the other direction and obesity contributes to thyroid disease.<p>And much of the increase may simply be from growing diagnostic scrutiny. Thyroid disease is very profitable for the healthcare industry. Treatments are effective for many and are usually life long. So there&#x27;s great incentive all around to pay more attention to it.

Is there a comparison between the age of conception vs cancer? Ie. in a lot of places people are having children at much higher ages, does that contribute to it or does it have no effect?

Something is going very wrong with American cancer rates, especially since the 90s. Just look at this graph: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ourworldindata.org&#x2F;grapher&#x2F;cancer-incidence?tab=chart&amp;country=OWID_WRL~African+Region+%28WHO%29~European+Region+%28WHO%29~WHO_SEAR~WHO_WPAC~WHO_EMR~USA~KOR~FRA~DEU~BRA~CAN~GBR">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ourworldindata.org&#x2F;grapher&#x2F;cancer-incidence?tab=char...</a><p>There&#x27;s no obvious correlation here, because when you look at things like obesity, other countries had similar increases with no effect on the cancer rate. One outlier use of &quot;mainly the US since 90s&quot; is GMO use, but I don&#x27;t believe there&#x27;s much scientific proof of cause there. PFAS? Any other guesses?

Unfortunately we don&#x27;t know if this is attributable to something that happened in the 90s as they were kids and then stopped, or it is ongoing or getting worse.

Well that sucks... and feels weird considering we all drink and smoke less than the old timers did.

Ah my good friend statistics. It&#x27;s all about the probabilities, and ratios, and comparisons. But being somewhat light on the details that matter.<p>So sure, incidences of cancer are going up, and while I briefly read the article I didn&#x27;t deep dive into the data. I&#x27;ll presume they corrected for population growth, the decline in other mortality rates, better testing, more testing, increasing life expectancy etc.<p>Alas youth it&#x27;s fixated on rate of change, but without (ideally upfront) discussing the are rate. Consider this example; (made up numbers)<p>&quot;Incidences of cancer generally are up 400%&quot;. Compared to &quot;incidences of car deaths are down 80%&quot;. From those 2 statements alone should you be more worried about cancer or cars?<p>And lots of articles and news report this - rate of change. But rate of change is meaningless without a base number. Consider this (still made up numbers)<p>&quot;Cancer went from killing 1 person per 100 to 4 per hundred&quot; &quot; road deaths went from 95 people per hundred to 19 per hundred&quot;. Are you now worried more about cars or cancers?<p>Side note : causes of death is a zero sum game. If one cause decreases the others have to increase.<p>Side note: the most important measure of course is the age if death. If I&#x27;m 90 I&#x27;m worried about cancer. If I&#x27;m 9 cars are a more immediate issue.<p>So yeah, eating more broccoli might reduce my risk of pancreas cancer. But saying it as &#x27;drops the risk 45%&#x27; doesn&#x27;t really help me if the base risk is say 1 in a million.<p>Seat belts though - highly recommended.