From Ron Hoffman, MD, ANH-USA Board President and Medical Director
It seems that nearly every day, we learn of yet another medical “breakthrough”; hi-tech and often pricey cures are commonplace. More of us take medications and undergo life-saving procedures.
Yet a series of recent articles in the Wall Street Journal (sorry—paywalled for some) highlight how critical aspects of Americans’ health are deteriorating.
One, entitled “Cancer Is Striking More Young People, and Doctors Are Alarmed and Baffled” heralds:
“Cancer is hitting more young people in the U.S. and around the globe, baffling doctors. Diagnosis rates in the U.S. rose in 2019 to 107.8 cases per 100,000 people under 50, up 12.8% from 95.6 in 2000, federal data show.”
Worldwide, the uptick is even starker, with a BMJ Oncology review finding:
“In 2019, the incidence number of early-onset cancer was 3.26 million, a 79.1% increase from 1990.”
This notwithstanding the fact that we’re curing more cancers with precision medicine; cancer death rates are down by a third since 1991. Notable improvements have been seen in early detection and treatment for breast cancer with the five-year risk of death from breast cancer falling from about 14% for women diagnosed in the 1990s to about 5% for women diagnosed around 2015.
And lung cancer deaths are decreasing, not so much because we’ve licked the disease but simply because smoking bans have had their impact.
But despite improvements in treatment, there’s more cancer:
“Through the end of 2019, incidence rates were increasing for some of the most common cancers, including breast, pancreatic, uterine, renal and HPV-related oral cancers, as well as melanoma.”
U.S. cancer cases are projected to reach a record high—over 2 million cases—in 2024.
So, to echo Buffalo Springfield, “There’s something happening here—what it is ain’t exactly clear”.
