Have these researchers solved the mystery of the increase in cancers among young people? Explanations

Olivia Munn, Kate Middleton, Caroline Receveur… cancer strikes more and more often before the age of 50. A trend confirmed by various studies, but the causes of which are still unclear. A team of scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis may have discovered an explanation.

Biological aging at the origin of cancers

The idea of ​​Dr. Yin Cao, associate professor of surgery at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and lead author of this work, was to start from the postulate that aging is proportionally correlated with cancer risk. . To be clear: the older we get, the greater the risk of developing the disease.

But this risk is not limited to chronological age, other factors such as environment, lifestyle, stress, genetics, etc. come into play. The doctor therefore wanted “use the well-developed concept of biological aging to apply it to the younger generation“.

An in-depth analysis of biological aging factors

To explore this avenue, the researcher and his team looked at the medical records of 148,724 participants in the UK Biobank, all aged between 37 and 54. They were particularly interested in nine blood markers correlated with biological age. So there is :

• Albumin which is a protein whose production by the liver decreases with age;
• Creatinine, a waste product produced by the breakdown of muscle tissue. It is also a marker of good kidney function, when its levels are low;
• Blood sugar, which is the marker of blood sugar level. With age, blood sugar remains high longer after meals.
• C-reactive protein or CRP, which is made by the liver in response to inflammation. When CRP is high, aging is faster;
• The percentage of lymphocytes, also called white blood cells, which decreases with age;
• Mean cell volume, a measure of the average size of red blood cells, which increases with age;
• The difference between the size of red blood cells: this is the ratio between the smallest and the largest, a figure which tends to increase with age
• Alkaline phosphatase, an enzyme produced primarily by the liver and bones that tends to increase with age
• The number of white blood cells: a white blood cell value in the high normal range may correspond to greater aging.

These nine values ​​were then entered into an algorithm called PhenoAge, to determine the aging of each person, compared to their chronological age.

Accelerated aging, responsible for certain cancers

The researchers correlated these results with early cancer diagnoses (before age 55). In total, nearly 3,200 cancers were diagnosed during the follow-up period. In detail, 17% of people born after 1965 are more likely to present this accelerated aging, compared to people born between 1950 and 1954.

Results: the researchers thus believe that accelerated aging is indeed associated with the appearance of cancer. The strongest associations were observed for cancers of the lung (doubled risk), stomach (risk increased by 60%), colon (risk also increased by 60%) and endometrial (risk increased by 80%).

Identify risks to better target screening

The findings of this study were presented Sunday, April 7, at the annual conference of the American Association of Cancer Research in San Diego. Questioned by our colleagues from CNN, Dr. Anne Blaes, director of the division of hematology and oncology at the University of Minnesota, who studies the impact of biological aging in cancer survivors, recalls that there is “drugs that also appear to be able to slow accelerated aging“.

“We are seeing more and more cancers, including gastrointestinal cancers and breast cancers in young people. If we had a way to identify those at higher risk, you can imagine we would recommend earlier screening.” she believes. This study perhaps provides the beginning of an answer.

Slide: Misconceptions about cancer