Teenage Cancer Fast Growth Link

Pennstater

from http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/index.php?newsid=6272

02 Mar 2004


Teenagers are growing faster than they used to, and because of this so could their risks of developing cancer. In the last 30 years teenage cancers have gone up by 50%. They have increased by 25% in the last 20 years.

Teenagers are growing faster now. Their families have better diets, their standard of living is higher and they have better access to things like good doctors and healthcare from day one.

The biggest killer of teenagers in the UK is accidents (traffic accidents, home accidents, etc). The second is cancer.

Melanoma has doubled since 1984 among teenagers. We take more holidays in sunny places than we used to twenty years ago.

But what about leukaemia and testicular cancer? They are also on the increase. Nobody knows why.

Since 1979 teenage cancers have increased by 1.2% a year, every year, relentlessly.

Some experts believe some of this increase is due to an increase in height and weight of young people today compared to twenty or thirty years ago. According to Professor Archie Bleyer, director of community oncology at the University of Texas, this could be a factor.

He said that growth is caused by cell division. Cancer takes place when the process of cell division suffers a breakdown and goes out of control.

He said 'This increasing growth rate, with an increasing number of cell divisions, means there are more chances for cancer to develop. It is the trade-off for a rising standard of living.

According to studies...?he said '....the faster the baby grows in the womb and the bigger it is at birth the more likely it is to develop cancer in early life. If it continues to grow rapidly it may be more prone to cancer later on.?