Cancer Rates Are 82% Higher in Young Women than Men: 'Something Broader Is Going On'

Mar. 15, 2025

Stock image of a young woman undergoing chemotherapy.Photo:Getty

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Driving these numbers is an increase in invasivebreast cancer, the report says, which has gone up 1% each year from 2012 to 2021. And in women younger than 50, it has increased 1.4 % per year. The study cites risk factors like excess body weight, later childbirth, and fewer childbirths as possible contributing factors.

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Pancreatic cancerhas also seen a steady 1% year-over-year increase in diagnoses since the mid-1990s — and mortality is also increasing, albeit at a smaller rate.

“These unfavorable trends are tipped toward women,” Rebecca L. Seigel, an epidemiologist with the American Cancer Society and the report’s first author, told theNew York Times.

“Of all the cancers that are increasing, some are increasing in men, but it’s lopsided — more of this increase is happening in women.”

Neil Iyengar, an oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, told the outlet that the rise in “a variety of cancers in younger people, particularly in young women, suggests there is something broader going on than variations in individual genetics or population genetics.”

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Environmental causes, as well as lifestyle factors — such as an unhealthy diet, poor sleep patterns, smoking or vaping, and alcohol use — may be driving the increase.

“I don’t think people realize how much control they have over their cancer risk,” Rebecca L. Seigel, an epidemiologist with the American Cancer Society and the report’s first author, told the outlet. “There’s so much we can all do. Don’t smoke is the most important.”

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source: people.com