Cancer Rates Are 82% Higher in Young Women than Men: 'Something Broader Is Going On'

Cancer rates for young women are sharply rising, with women under 50 more likely to develop cancer than their male counterparts — by 82%.

The rate of cancer for young women “has increased from 51% higher than men in 2002 to 82% higher in 2021,” according to a report issued by the American Cancer Society.

Driving these numbers is an increase in invasive breast cancer, the report says, which has gone up 1% each year from 2012 to 2021. And in women younger than 50, it has increased 1.4 % per year. The study cites risk factors like excess body weight, later childbirth, and fewer childbirths as possible contributing factors.

Related: Breast Cancer Awareness: Empowering Stories and All the Facts

Deaths from uterine cancer are also on the rise, as the study says it’s “one of the few cancers with increasing mortality; from 2013 to 2022 the death rate rose by 1.5% per year.”

Colorectal cancer also follows this trend, where rates among people younger than 50 have increased by 2.4% per year — and mortality rates have increased by 1% per year.

Pancreatic cancer has also seen a steady 1% year-over-year increase in diagnoses since the mid-1990s — and mortality is also increasing, albeit at a smaller rate.

“These unfavorable trends are tipped toward women,” Rebecca L. Seigel, an epidemiologist with the American Cancer Society and the report’s first author, told the New York Times.

“Of all the cancers that are increasing, some are increasing in men, but it’s lopsided — more of this increase is happening in women.”

Neil Iyengar, an oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, told the outlet that the rise in “a variety of cancers in younger people, particularly in young women, suggests there is something broader going on than variations in individual genetics or population genetics.”

Related: Millennials and Gen X at Higher Risk for 17 Types of Cancers: Study

Environmental causes, as well as lifestyle factors — such as an unhealthy diet, poor sleep patterns, smoking or vaping, and alcohol use — may be driving the increase.

“I don’t think people realize how much control they have over their cancer risk,” Rebecca L. Seigel, an epidemiologist with the American Cancer Society and the report’s first author, told the outlet. “There’s so much we can all do. Don’t smoke is the most important.”

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