[Wonnk13]

36 y/o male with stage 4 colon cancer. Diagnosed in 2016. Lifelong triathlete / healthy eater. I think it's easy to write this off and just better screening, but I think that's certainly a necessary, but not sufficient explanation.

I'm open to other ideas, but I have to imagine some of this is due to changes in our environment and food supply. plastics everywhere, pesticides in our food, pollution in the air.

[dev_throw]

Stage 4 as well, diagnosed in 2021. Lifelong vegetarian, mostly ate organic foods and generally active. I always suspected something was wrong with my gut, but didn't think it would be cancer. No genetic component either.

[Dig1t]

What made you suspect it? What symptoms did you have?

[cracrecry]

Doesn't make sense at all to have 30 something people with cancer, but we see more and more, although the treatment improves.

My personal opinion is mandated flame retardants in foams, mattresses and cushions and other plastics. Smokers die less from fire but everybody else breath poison.

[timr]

Young people have always had cancer at some rate, which is why anecdotes here are not particularly indicative. However rare and tragic, it's not unheard of.

That said, the pop media (of which Scientific American is part) routinely conflates rates of diagnosis with rates of late-stage cancer, even though they're very different, and there's a discrepancy between them. I don't know about colon cancer in particular, but I know that it's been a long-term trend in many different cancers -- for example (iirc) skin cancer -- that people are getting diagnosed far more often, but death rates due to the illness are essentially constant.

This tells you either that we're getting worse at treating what we diagnose, or more plausibly, that we're not detecting things that would lead to death.

[moritzwarhier]

How did you come to this conclusion?

Why not microplastics, fine particle pollution, noise (urban living around lots of cars and/or heavy industry), mental stress, lack of sleep, lack of healthy connections, lack of time outdoors and healthy exercise, and similar things?

Seems weird to me to pick one arbitrary class of chemicals when all of the things I listed have been worsening.

[cancerboi]

30 y/o male with stage 3c testicular cancer. Diagnosis at age 29.

I have a very rare type of cancer and this particular type of cancer has increased in numbers for young men.

[jlcx]

3c here as well. The doctors were surprised that it had spread to my bones, and it didn’t show up on the CT scans that they were using for surveillance.

[AnonMessiah]

I thankfully caught mine at stage 1 and had lefty removed just after turning 22

[lambdaba]

For you and other people in this thread dealing with this, I humbly offer Dr. Thomas Seyfried's work on the metabolic treatment of cancer [1]. I think it's important to at least give his ideas a look, there are many interviews of him on YouTube that are a good start.

[1] https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/schools/morrissey/departments/biol...

[manmal]

How is your circadian rhythm? In bed before 10, low lights at night, bright light in the morning? Some interesting observational studies around circadian rhythm in colorectal, as you may have seen already.

[candiddevmike]

Mind sharing where you grew up?

[hypeatei]

Yeah, my personal theory is that plastics and PFAS are going to be the "things we did wrong for too long" for millenials / Gen Z.

[nielsbot]

Just like leaded paint before... and perhaps all (fossil fuel) pollution too.

I think the ultimate lesson will be "we're one with the environment, not, in fact, a separate entity from it".

[ein0p]

Then GenX would be full of cancer of all sorts. Pesticides, plastics, pollution - you name it, it was way worse back then.

[francisofascii]

Yikes. How did you find out? Did you notice a drop in your energy levels? Stomach cramps?

[ronnier]

I hope things are looking better and for you and a full recovery.

[lovethevoid]

Unlike the general trend which is that obesity is the primary cause, for your case it might be a combination of elevated stress and your triathlon work. If you were not working with a professional on your recovery and prevention, it might be possible the elevated intensity for longer periods could have affected your health.

Note there aren't any studies specifically about triathletes, only that with proper training, diet, and prevention as most higher level athletes get (uni, olympian, etc), there's no serious risk of DNA damage. Also short course triathletes face more risks generally speaking, at least for cardiac and gastrointestinal issues (not all being chronic, so there's no direct link to cancer here either).

Sleep issues are another area usually ignored since people believe they can't do anything about their sleep issues. I doubt most people are even getting good sleep, in the current ecosystem of always being available.

Additionally, due to the general availability of office work, more people are suffering from gastrointestinal issues than before. This causes us to be sedentary for long periods of time, but we believe ourselves to be "active" because we go for a run on the treadmill. I wouldn't say this really applies to you as a lifelong athlete, only that these extremes (sitting for hours, then rapid exercise, then back to sitting for hours) likely has unintended consequences.

Just some ideas.