Cancer in the Young: A Silent Epidemic We Can Fight

 


As a cancer specialist practising in Bangalore for over two decades, I have watched the face of cancer change dramatically. The patient sitting across from me today is often not a retired grandparent but a 28-year-old software engineer, a 34-year-old new mother, a 31-year-old start up founder. Bright, ambitious people with everything ahead of them — blindsided by a diagnosis they never saw coming.

This is not anecdote. It is a global trend with local urgency. Breast, colorectal, thyroid, cervical, and even lung cancers are rising steadily among adults under 40. India, with its rapid lifestyle transformation over the past two decades, is seeing this shift accelerate faster than most nations. We are not just talking about numbers on a graph. We are talking about your colleagues, your friends, your family members.

Why is this happening?

The causes are not exotic or mysterious. They are written into our daily routines. Sedentary jobs that chain us to screens for ten hours. Chronic sleep deprivation worn as a badge of hustle culture. Diets built around ultra-processed food, sugary beverages, and delivery apps. Rising alcohol consumption. Tobacco in its many disguises. Obesity, which is now understood to be a significant driver of at least thirteen types of cancer. And layered over all of this — unrelenting, unmanaged stress that quietly suppresses our immune defences year after year. Click here to more

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