June 21, 2024 -- Gen-Xers are more likely to be diagnosed with cancer than generations that came before them, according to a new study published in JAMA Open Network.
Researchers from the National Cancer Institute examined health records of 3.8 million people diagnosed with malignant cancer in the U.S. from 1992 to 2018. Cancer rates were determined for members of Generation X (people born between 1965-1980) and baby boomers (born between 1946-1964).
Computer modeling showed that when people in Gen X turn 60, starting in 2025, they are more likely to be diagnosed with invasive cancer than previous generations, including baby boomers. In fact, the researchers wrote, “Generation X is experiencing larger per-capita increases in the incidence of leading cancers combined than any prior generation born from 1908 through 1964.”
“For the first time since the Greatest Generation, we have a generation with a higher rate of cancer than their parents. It's my generation. Gen X,” said F. Perry Wilson, MD, director of the Clinical and Translational Research Accelerator at Yale University in New Haven, CT. Wilson is also a columnist for Medscape, WebMD’s sister site for health care professionals.
Researchers said the findings surprised them because of initiatives to reduce cancer, such as campaigns to discourage smoking and increased screening tests for colon, rectal, and breast cancers.
Obesity, sedentary lifestyles, and more early detection might be causing the higher cancer rates for Gen X, the study said.
Increases in colorectal cancer in Gen X and younger people have been in the news lately. But the study also projected Gen X would have increases in thyroid cancer, kidney cancer, and leukemia in men and women. Gen X women were projected to have increases in uterine, pancreatic, and ovarian cancers and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Men were projected to have increases in prostate cancer.
“The key thing to understanding this paper is to realize that age is a key cancer risk factor, but exposures differ by social generation,” Wilson said. “A 50-year-old today was exposed to a fundamentally different set of potential carcinogens as someone who was 50 in 1980.
