For Cancer Patients, Survivors, Caregivers, and Advocates

My cellphone rang on a Thursday afternoon. My best friend was panicking about her younger sister, Mia, who’d just found a lump in her breast. “It wasn’t there yesterday, I swear,” Mia told me when I met them at my office an hour later.

One touch and I knew. Triple-negative breast cancer. She was 37.

The question she asked me then is the same one I hear over and over: “Why is this happening to me?”

While Mia went through chemo, surgery, and radiation for triple negative breast cancer, she was also getting three kids under 10 ready for school every morning, packing lunches, managing a household. No family history. Genetic testing negative. She did everything “right.” She’s healthy now, years later, thank God. But we still don’t have a good answer for her.

And she’s far from alone. Cancer in people under 50 has jumped nearly 80% since 1990. It’s now the leading cause of death for this age group in developed countries. Women are getting hit especially hard. And deaths—not just diagnoses—have gone up 28%. People are actually dying.

So What’s Going On?

If you spend time on social media, you’ve seen the theories. Seed oils are toxic! COVID vaccines are causing cancer! Microplastics are killing everyone!

But the real story is messier and way more interesting.

Fourteen types of cancer are showing up more in younger people. Colon cancer, which used to be something you worried about in your 70s, is now becoming the number one cancer killer in young adults. Young women with breast cancer are more likely to have aggressive types. More young women are dying from uterine cancer.

Here’s what should make everyone stop and think: this trend started with people born in the 1950s and 60s. Whatever’s causing this has been building for seventy years. Long before anyone was arguing about seed oils on TikTok.

Now, some of what we’re seeing is better detection. We do more scans, so we find more thyroid and kidney tumors that might never have caused problems. But some cancers really are killing more young people. Colon cancer. Uterine cancer. Anyone who tries to tell you it’s completely one or the other isn’t being straight with you.

It’s Not Just One Thing

I wish I could tell you there’s one villain. One thing to avoid and you’re safe. But it doesn’t work that way. Over the past 70 years, multiple things have changed about how we live, what we eat, what we’re exposed to from birth. All these things together created a perfect storm.

The Food We Eat

Women under 50 who ate a lot of ultra-processed foods had 50% higher risk of precancerous colon polyps. I’m not just talking about obvious junk food. Pick up a package and look at the ingredient list. If you see words that sound like they belong in a chemistry lab, that’s what I’m talking about. These foods trigger inflammation, mess with your gut bacteria, and have almost no fiber.

Your Gut Bacteria

The trillions of bacteria in your digestive system matter more than we imagined. Young people with colon cancer have way less variety in their gut bacteria. What messes it up? Antibiotics (overused since the 1950s), C-section births, formula feeding, and ultra-processed diets. The scary part? This damage might happen when you’re a baby and set your cancer risk for life.

Chemicals Everywhere

We’re surrounded by chemicals that mess with our hormones. They’re in plastic containers, nonstick pans, stain-resistant fabrics, pesticides, shampoo, and makeup. These chemicals can pretend to be your natural hormones or block them from working. Exposure to certain PFAS chemicals increases thyroid cancer by 56%. They’re linked to breast, uterine, prostate, and thyroid cancers. And they became everywhere starting in—you guessed it—the 1950s and 60s.

Stress Is Real Biology

When you’re chronically stressed—grinding, never-ending stress—your stress hormone cortisol stays elevated. That suppresses your immune system, including cells that hunt down cancer cells. You get persistent inflammation. Stress hormones can even help tumors grow. Young adults today face unprecedented stress: unaffordable housing, student debt, career instability, social media anxiety, terrible sleep. This isn’t wellness talk. This is measurable biology with clear links to cancer.

Weight (But Not How You Think)

Yes, obesity increases cancer risk. But a lot of young cancer patients are not overweight. So obesity is part of the picture, but clearly not the whole story.

Young Women and Hormones

Women who get periods earlier and have kids later have higher breast cancer risk from hormone exposure. But when young women actually get breast cancer, it’s way more likely to be aggressive types that don’t even respond to hormones, like Mia’s triple-negative cancer. These might develop through different routes—genetics, hormone-disrupting chemicals during development, or something we haven’t figured out yet.

We Don’t Move

Every generation since the 1950s has moved less. Physical inactivity alone increases cancer risk and makes all the other risk factors worse.

What Social Media Gets Really Wrong

COVID Vaccines

The timeline doesn’t work. This cancer trend started 70 years before COVID vaccines existed. The mRNA doesn’t become part of your DNA—it can’t. Multiple studies of millions of people show no increased cancer in vaccinated people. This myth persists because our brains like to find patterns and blame things, but that’s not how science works.

Seed Oils

Studies show omega-6 fats in seed oils don’t increase inflammation. A 2025 study found people who ate more omega-6 had lower risks of heart disease, cancer, and death. The issue is balance. Our ancestors ate omega-6 and omega-3 in roughly equal amounts. Modern diets? We’re eating 15 to 20 times more omega-6 than omega-3 because vegetable oils got cheap and people stopped eating fish. The fix isn’t panicking about seed oils. It’s eating more fish and cutting ultra-processed foods.

Microplastics

These do deserve attention. They’re in our water, air, blood, placentas, and cancer tissue. Lab studies show DNA damage and inflammation. But we don’t know if they’re causing cancer or just accumulating in tumors. Filter your water, use glass containers, don’t heat food in plastic. But don’t make yourself crazy. Claiming microplastics are definitely causing the epidemic is premature. Ignoring them would be stupid.

What You Can Actually Do

Get Screened

Colon cancer screening starts at 45 now. Only one in four people actually do it. For breast cancer, guidelines are failing young women. Screening usually starts at 40-45, but that’s too late for many aggressive cancers. If you have family history, dense breasts, or any symptoms—push for earlier screening.

Trust Your Body

Found a lump? Rectal bleeding? Persistent belly pain? Unexplained weight loss or fatigue? Get it checked, regardless of your age. I can’t tell you how many young patients get dismissed with “you’re too young for cancer” and wait months before someone takes them seriously. You know your body. Be annoying if you have to.

Know Your Family Story

One in five young people with colon cancer has a hereditary syndrome. For breast cancer, genetics plays an even bigger role. If relatives have had cancer, especially young, talk to your doctor about genetic counseling.

Do What You Can

Cut back on ultra-processed foods gradually. Add more real food, fiber, vegetables. Move your body more. Take stress seriously—find what works (therapy, exercise, time outside, hobbies, good people) and protect that time like your life depends on it. Because it kind of does.

Reduce chemical exposure where practical: filter water, use glass containers, read labels on personal care products. But don’t make yourself insane. Do what’s doable.

For Caregivers

Young patients face unique challenges: fertility worries, career concerns, childcare, finances. Connect them to resources specifically for young adults with cancer.

For Advocates

Push for stricter regulation of harmful chemicals, healthier food environments, accessible screening, and research funding. Fight misinformation. Share good sources. Call out dangerous BS.

The Bottom Line

Mia is healthy. Her kids are teenagers now. But we still don’t know why she got cancer at 37.

The cancer crisis in young people is real. It’s complicated. There’s no one bad guy, no magic bullet. But we know enough to act. We need to tackle this from every angle—what we eat, how we live, what we’re exposed to, who gets screened, what gets researched, what policies change.

People are getting cancer right now. Young people who should have decades ahead. We can’t wait for perfect answers.

This week: Schedule that screening. Trade one processed snack for real food. Take a walk.

This month: Write down your family health history and share it with your doctor. Pick one source of stress and change it.

This year: Make real food your normal. Build stress management into every day. Share good information. Call out bad information.

Let’s do this.

Written By: Tiffany Troso, MD Medical Oncologist and Founder of Winning The Cancer Journey
http://www.linktr.ee/drtiffanytroso