Cancer cases increase in women while they decrease in men, according to study

What you need to know:

  • A new report indicates that the proportion of cancer cases in the United States is falling more among women than men, as well as increasingly among young adults.
  • The reason behind this trend is unknown until now, although doctors suggest that it could be due to issues such as alcohol consumption, lack of exercise or a diet heavily loaded with ultra-processed foods.
  • However, the cancer death rate has not been rising accordingly, possibly because there are greater efforts at testing and early detection.

In 1992, men in the United States had a 1.6 times greater risk than women of being diagnosed with cancer. By 2021, the risk among both demographic groups was almost the same, according to a report published this Thursday by the American Cancer Society.

The report highlights that the burden of suffering from cancer has also been equalizing between older adults and younger people.

Additionally, for the first time since records began, the cancer rate for women between 50 and 64 years old has exceeded that of men in the same age range, according to the report. Women under 50 also had an 82% higher cancer rate in 2021 than men of the same age.

This could be due to issues such as the fact that breast and thyroid cancer have been occurring more in younger women in the last two decades, while rates of melanoma (skin cancer), non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and prostate cancer have all decreased. dropped for men under 50 in that same time period.

“In summary, we have more cases of cancer in general, especially among young people and especially among women” says Arif Kamal, MD, of the American Cancer Society (ACS).

“A decade ago men were 50% more likely to suffer from cancer than today,” he adds. “Today those probabilities are almost equal with respect to sex, and it is because of two things in general: men have fewer cases of cancer but, above all, women are having more.”

The ACS report also found that although there was a decrease in lung cancer cases between 2012 and 2021, that drop was less pronounced among women, perhaps because Americans have been more adopting the habit of chain smoking or have not stopped smoking. So much so, according to William Dahut, chief scientific officer of the ACS.

“For the first time, if you are a woman under 65, you have a higher chance of developing lung cancer than a man,” Dahut said in a conference call with reporters.

The report predicts that in total there will be about 2.04 million cases of cancer diagnosed in 2025 alone, a higher figure than predicted in 2024.

However, the fact that there are more cases of cancer It does not mean that there are more deaths from cancer.

The related mortality rate fell by 34% between 1991 and 2022, according to ACS data, which attributes this new news to more efforts to have early detection, as well as more treatment options and lower rates of cigarette consumption.

Treatments, alcohol and diet

Oncologist Neil Iyengar, part of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, says part of the reason behind this is the emergence of immunotherapy treatments, which use the patient’s own immune system to react against the disease. The use of genetic sequencing has also helped doctors direct their patients to treatments that may be best for them, Iyengar says. There are also new antibody drugs that have made chemotherapy more effective while reducing some of its side effects.

“There are 13 different types of cancer associated with being overweight, seven different types associated with consuming alcohol.”

Arif Kamal, doctor

It’s harder to say for sure what are the reasons behind cancer cases are increasing among women and younger people, says Jennifer Litton, who is vice president of clinical research at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.

“If someone theorizes that ‘surely it is because of x, yz’ it is difficult to verify it because there is a lot of variability between the data,” says Litton.

Medical personnel have suggested that the trend could be due to lifestyle issues, such as increased alcohol consumption, lack of exercise or diets high in ultra-processed foods; These three conditions have been linked to a increased carcinogenic risk.

“Ten years ago we thought that cancer was only due to genetics or bad luck, but now we know that almost half of cases are due to certain ways of living,” says Kamal, from ACS. “There are 13 different types of cancer that are associated with being overweight and there are seven different types of cancer that have been associated with consuming alcohol,” he points out.

Iyengar, the New York oncologist, says obesity “is currently the biggest risk factor.”

The ACS indicates that carrying extra body weight causes up to twice as many cases of cancer in women as in men. For example, there has been an increase in endometrial cancer among young women, and this condition is closely linked to obesity.

“We are seeing more obesity-related cancers in people in their 40s and 50s than in their parents 60-something or 70-something,” says Kamal. “We know that generationally, people over 60 grew up being more active or not consuming as many ultra-processed foods.”

Another explanation, according to doctors, may be the presence of carcinogenic substances in the environment such as air pollution or toxins called “forever chemicals.”

Also radon gas, which has been detected in several American homes, especially in the Midwest region. Radon causes lung cancer among people who do not smoke.

“Probably what we’re seeing is that changes in what we’re exposed to in the environment are already showing up in cancer statistics,” Iyengar says.

But doctors interviewed pointed out that this means that several actions can be taken to reduce the chance of getting cancer.

“The average person knows that it is important to eat healthy and have an active life to reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease or hypertension. Now we need to have the same discussion about how to have these lifestyles are linked to having or not having cancer,” says Kamal.