Earlier this month, startling cancer research findings hit the news.
A study press release headline touted a “global surge” in new cancer cases among younger people over the past three decades.
Many major news outlets parroted the “striking” finding. “Cancer cases in under-50s worldwide up nearly 80% in three decades, study finds,” The Guardian reported.
The analysis, published in BMJ Oncology, plumbed data from the Global Burden of Disease 2019 study to determine changes in cancer incidence and deaths among people aged 15-49 years across 204 countries.
The team found that between 1990 and 2019, global cancer cases in this younger group had increased by almost 80% and cancer deaths had risen by nearly 28%. The authors flagged diet, alcohol, and tobacco as the “the main risk factors” underlying the early-onset cancer trend.
But the analysis was deeply flawed, experts said. It failed to account for population growth and age.