Oncologists have sounded the alarm about an alarming rise in cancer diagnoses among young adults, and some point to junk food and processed meat as the culprit.
“We advise people to reduce their intake of foods that are highly processed and high in saturated fat, sugar and salt,” Matthew Lambert, dietitian and health information and promotion manager at the World Cancer Research Fund, told the Daily Mail this week.
“This includes cakes, biscuits, pastries, (chips) sugary drinks and fast food such as pizza and burgers,” Mr Lambert explained.
Cancer hits young people hard, especially women and adults in their 30s.
“It’s pretty disturbing for all of us,” Dr. Coral Olazagasti, assistant professor of clinical oncology at the University of Miami’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, told The Washington Post in April.
“Previously, cancer was thought of as a disease of older people,” she added, “but in recent years we’ve seen a trend of people being diagnosed with cancer at younger and younger ages.”
There’s no single culprit, but ultra-processed foods and processed meats are coming under the most scrutiny.
Professor Charles Swanton told the American Society of Clinical Oncology last year that research showed gut bacteria, which are more common in people who eat diets low in fibre and high in sugar, could “trigger” early-onset bowel cancer.
“Several studies have found that a proportion of tumours from people with early-stage bowel cancer harbour mutations that may be caused by these microbial species,” said Swanton, an oncologist and lead clinician at Cancer Research UK.
These mutations are thought to reduce the body’s ability to fight precancerous cells.
Ultra-processed foods include packaged foods, drinks, cereals and prepared meals that contain colours, emulsifiers, flavours and other additives. Ultra-processed foods are typically high in sugar, saturated fat and salt and lack vitamins and fibre.
According to a recent study, UPFs make up approximately 73% of the U.S. food supply, and the average U.S. adult gets more than 60% of their daily calories from UPFs.
“These types of foods have no fiber and few essential nutrients, so they should only be eaten occasionally and in small amounts,” says Lambert.
A recent study reported that people who consume 10% more UPF than others have a 23% higher risk of head and neck cancer.
According to the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine, a junk food diet is also associated with a 24 percent increased risk of cancer of the esophagus, the tube that connects the throat to the stomach, which is the sixth leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies processed meat as “probably carcinogenic to humans” and points out that “there is sufficient evidence from epidemiological studies that the consumption of processed meat causes colorectal cancer.”
Experts believe the increased cancer risk may be caused by nitrates in meat binding to compounds in the body and damaging cells.
A 2015 study found that people who eat red or processed meat every day are 40% more likely to develop colorectal cancer than those who eat it once a week or less.
“Consumption of foods containing nitrate and nitrite preservatives, smoked or browned foods, and red meat are clearly associated with cancer risk,” Dr. Nicholas DeVito, assistant professor of medical oncology at Duke University Medical Center, said in a “letter to the editor” submitted to STAT News on Wednesday.
DeVito said most of his new patients are under 45 years old.
He blames poor dietary choices such as “fried foods, red meat and sugary drinks” for this worrying trend.
He called on local and state governments to promote healthier options.
“Weak regulation in the United States has allowed additives that are ‘generally recognized as safe’ to flood our food system,” DeVito wrote. “The federal government could empower the FDA to impose stricter controls on food processing and additives and fund a multifaceted strategy to address food content and availability.”
He likened UPF to tobacco, saying, “Through the combined efforts of health care workers, public health experts, governments and other organisations, we have been able to significantly reduce tobacco-related deaths. I believe we can do the same with ultra-processed foods.”