Study: Obesity-related cancer up in millennials

The rates for some cancers linked to obesity are rising among young adults in the USA, said a study led by the American Cancer Society.

The study published Sunday in the peer-reviewed journal The Lancet Public Health found rates rising for six of 12 cancers tied to obesity – colorectal, endometrial, gallbladder, kidney, multiple myeloma and pancreas – from 1995 to 2014.

In some types of cancer, people born in 1980 to 1989 had double the rate of risk at the same age compared with those born in 1945 to 1954, said the study.

“Although the absolute risk of these cancers is small in younger adults, these findings have important public health implications,” study author Ahmedin Jemal, scientific vice president of surveillance and health services research with the American Cancer Society, said in a statement.

Jemal said the trend among younger adults could grow worse, “potentially halting or reversing the progress achieved in reducing cancer mortality over the past several decades.”

Incidences of cancer among young people in general is still much lower compared with older people.

According to 2015 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were more than 183,000 new cancer cases among people ages 25 to 49. By comparison, there were more than 252,000 cases among those 65 to 69.

Researchers used 20 years of data on incidences of 30 types of cancers from a database managed by the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries.

That covers about 67 percent of the U.S. population.