The Blubber

The number of under-50s worldwide being diagnosed with cancer has risen by nearly 80% in three decades, per the BMJ.

“Since 1990, the incidence and deaths of early onset cancers have substantially increased globally,” the report says. “Encouraging a healthy lifestyle, including a healthy diet, the restriction of tobacco and alcohol consumption and appropriate outdoor activity, could reduce the burden of early onset cancer.”

In 2019, new cancer diagnoses among under-50s totalled 3.26 million, an increase of 79% on the 1990 figure. Breast cancer accounted for the largest number of cases and associated deaths, at 13.7 and 3.5 for every 100,000 of the global population respectively.

Cases of early onset windpipe and prostate cancers rose the fastest between 1990 and 2019, with estimated annual percentage changes of 2.28% and 2.23% respectively. At the other end of the spectrum, cases of early onset liver cancer fell by an estimated 2.88% a year.

A total of 1.06 million under-50s died of cancer in 2019, an increase of 27% on the 1990 figure. After breast cancer, the highest death tolls were linked to windpipe, lung, stomach and bowel cancers. The steepest increases in deaths were among people with kidney or ovarian cancer.

The highest rates of early onset cancers in 2019 were in North America, Oceania and western Europe. Low- and middle-income countries were also affected, and the highest death rates among under-50s were in Oceania, eastern Europe and central Asia.

In low- and middle-income countries, early onset cancer had a much greater impact on women than on men, in terms of poor health and deaths.