Colon Cancer Is Rising in Young People and Scientists Got a Clue About Why
Postedabout 2 months agoActiveabout 2 months ago
nationalgeographic.comResearchstory
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Colon CancerYoung PeopleGut HealthMicrobiome
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Colon Cancer
Young People
Gut Health
Microbiome
A new study links childhood exposure to colibactin to rising colon cancer rates in young people, sparking discussion on potential contributing factors such as gut health, plastics, and lifestyle changes.
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- 01Story posted
Nov 11, 2025 at 3:07 AM EST
about 2 months ago
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Nov 11, 2025 at 3:12 AM EST
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Nov 12, 2025 at 10:12 AM EST
about 2 months ago
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ID: 45885130Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 9:01:20 PM
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Diet and UPFs as well ? There are so many things that have changed.
In the last few years? I would suggest it's much lower than it was in the 60's and 70's during the free love movements and other related movements. Prior to the 80's there was a lot more unprotected sex prior to the aids epidemic. Porn with a lot of body hair basically exploded when VHS tapes were created and people experimented a lot more.
Diet has certainly gotten worse. Most of the artificial crap was being introduced in the early 70's with a trailing 10 year lag on T2D increase but that has definitely gotten worse with time. What big change was introduced into the diet in the last few years?
As time went on, divorce rates increased and/or both spouses were forced to work full time, meals gravitated towards fast and/or ultra-processed food. Why ? The parents had no time to cook.
So here we are.
I wish the article had rates based upon household income too. I kind of expect the children of the very rich is avoiding this trend because they could have servants/hired caregivers cooking for them.
The point was that people eat fewer freshly prepared meals than before. And while I'm on the go, so I won't research a study, I'm pretty sure this is true.
Additional points:
- street food in Western countries is never really nourishing, almost exclusively fat, sugar, meat protein and processed white bread
- quality of fast food has gone down the drain on top of that, at least here
- not enough daily physical activity
- lots of stressful jobs without physical activity
Something else changed in the last few years. One of these things is not like the other.
If these factors are perfectly controlled for, maybe you're right. It would be stupid for me to further engage in discussion about it though, without having read science about this.
There are other things we know about though, for example an increase in microplastics intake.
BTW, for my main comment, I am probably in the top 15% of age distribution of people commenting here.
All impossible to test in a highly controlled environment.
Moreover, with increased antibiotic resistance, it could become harder to treat.
Study: https://idp.nature.com/authorize?response_type=cookie&client...