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Obesity-related cancers rise for younger US generations, study says

Cancers linked to obesity are rising at a faster rate in millennials than in older generations in the United States, the American Cancer Society has said. It said a steep rise in obesity in the past 40 years may have increased cancer risk in younger generations.

And it warned the problem could set back recent progress on cancer. The Society studied millions of health records from 1995 to 2014, publishing its findings in The Lancet Public Health. In the last few decades, there has been mounting evidence that certain cancers can be linked to obesity.

Researchers found that the rates of six out of 12 obesity-related cancers (colorectal, uterine, gallbladder, kidney, pancreatic and multiple myeloma – a blood cancer) all went up, particularly in people under the age of 50. And they found steeper rises in successively younger generations aged 25 to 49 – and particularly in millennials, in their 20s and 30s.