Colon Cancer Spiking Dramatically in Young People, Doctors Say It’s a ‘Medical Mystery’

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Colorectal is on the rise in people under 50, and has been for years.

And according to a March review of colorectal cancer statistics published in “CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians,” the cause is unknown.

That’s not how they put it, of course.

“Progress against CRC could be accelerated by uncovering the etiology of rising incidence in generations born since 1950 and increasing access to high-quality screening and treatment among all populations, especially Native Americans,” is what the study’s authors wrote in an abstract of their work, but it means largely the same thing: If we want to make progress against this disease, we need to know the cause of its increasing prevalence.

The Washington Post, reporting on the study last month, put it more directly: “No one knows why.”

What we do know is that in 2019, about one in five cases of colorectal cancer were diagnosed in patients under the age of 55.

That may not sound like a lot, given that about 70.9 percent of the American population was under 55 in 2019, according to Census Bureau statistics.

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