Rates of bowel cancer are rising among young people
Childhood exposure to a common gut bacterium could be responsible
AT EMERGENCY DEPARTMENTS across the world, patients are presenting with undiagnosed cancers at an advanced stage. Their tumours have gone unnoticed for so long because these individuals defy the picture of the typical cancer patient: they are young, seemingly healthy, and without any family history of the disease. Worryingly, their numbers are rising. Increased incidence of early-onset cancer, as the diagnosis is called for adults under 50, has been documented for more than a dozen cancers, including those of the breast, bowel, lung, ovaries and pancreas.
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This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “The root of the problem”
From the May 3rd 2025 edition
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