Colorectal cancer incidence in teens up 300% since 1999 (opens in new tab)

Phones are stored primarily in front pockets that are nowhere near the colon in terms of biology (almost everyone has relatively dense meaty quads and femurs between the thigh and colon) or the inverse square law.

Also, the article seems to suggest that the absolute incident rate isn’t high - which could mean that we are likely getting better at detection rather than increase in underlying prevalence.

I would be more worried about the increase of chemicals in the environment, such as PFAS and nanoplastics.

- Novel chemicals in the environment?

- Composting bins now in proximity to food?

- Decline in vax rates? (pathogen-cancer route, immune response spillover route)

- Organic pesticides on organic vegetables?

With the 10-19 year-old groups, you're looking at very low overall numbers, so a 400% increase might mean something like from 10 to 50 cases a year in the US. Still, shedding light on this anomaly might uncover a major causal pathway in the older cohorts.

I'd expect a 50 year old person that uses a phone for the past 25 years to be full of holes if cellphone usage has any effect on kids using them for few years. Especially since older phones were radiating much more energy.

Yes but we must unpack that. It's not just WHAT you eat (and even then, a 2024 tomato is not a 1950 tomato), it's how it was grown, how it was processed, how it was prepared, etc. Most studies don't even scratch the surface of this

Food additives are a part of that as well and there is some evidence. E.g. gelatin was replaced by carrageenan in most foods which has been shown to trigger colon cancer.

Drinking water is another such. NDMA is a byproduct of water disinfection and industrial processes (in drinking water as a result of chloramine disinfection, and in chlorinated wastewater used for aquifer recharge) and has been shown to trigger colon cancer. 35-40% of the municipally-treated water in the US is now disinfected using chloramine, a percentage which has nearly doubled in the last decade

As always there are rabbit/turtle/bird situations; it's impossible to say how many of these early detections are of slow-growing benign conditions that left untreated would never pose a threat to quality of life or morbidity or mortality. But because these tests are not done by default, but only in response to some reported symptoms, it is more likely that there is an actual increase in incidence.

It does not appear that this is yet a published study, which might give more data on the prevalence of testing that might in turn give an idea of how much the screening effect contributes.

https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2020...

TLDR Strong evidence diet (more sugar, more alcohol, less fiber, highly processed foods in general), western disease, less exercise are contributing factors.

Following colorectal cancer rates of folks who get on GLP-1 agonists (semaglutide) might provide stronger signal.