Why Cancer Is Rising in Young People...and What You Can Do About It

When Krystle Harris was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer in 2019, life as she knew it went on hold. She was in a graduate program, was working full-time, and had just been the maid of honor at her childhood best friend's wedding.

- Olivia Luppino

She was also only 28 years old. “It felt like absolutely everything about me was stripped away at that moment,” she says.

She moved home to begin treatment: six months of chemo, a lumpectomy, and radiation. She was declared cancer-free in April 2020, but four years later, doctors discovered she'd developed metastatic thyroid cancer—all before her 33rd birthday.

If that story sounds eerily similar to ones you've heard from friends, it's not a coincidence. Since 1990, the global incidence of early-onset cancer (cancers diagnosed in people younger than 50) has increased by nearly 80 percent and is projected to rise by another 31 percent by 2030, according to a study in BMJ Oncology. And compared to men under 50, women of the same age have an 82 percent higher rate, up from 51 percent in 2002, according to the American Cancer Society's most recent annual report. On top of all that, young people's cancers tend to be more aggressive, often because they're diagnosed at later stages. Colon and rectal cancers lead the uptick with the fastest rate increases, followed by uterine, blood (leukemia), kidney, and breast.

Traditionally, one of the biggest risk factors for cancer has been age. Now, being young isn't the protector it once was, and scientists are disturbed, to say the least. Even if you don't have someone in your life affected by cancer, you've probably noticed the increase in the news. Former Bachelorette star Katie Thurston was just 34 when she found a cancerous lump in her breast; Jessie J recently shared that she was diagnosed with breast cancer at 37; Teddi Mellencamp was 41 when doctors discovered melanoma; Kate Middleton was 42 when she talked about her cancer diagnosis; Olivia Munn was 43 when she underwent a double mastectomy and hysterectomy for stage I aggressive breast cancer. All this prompts the question: What's going on?

Behind the Climb