From Ron Hoffman, MD, ANH-USA Board President and Medical Director<\/p>\n
It seems that nearly every day, we learn of yet another medical \u201cbreakthrough\u201d; hi-tech and often pricey cures are commonplace. More of us take medications and undergo life-saving procedures.<\/p>\n
Yet a series of recent articles in the\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/em>\u00a0(sorry\u2014paywalled for some) highlight how critical aspects of Americans\u2019 health are deteriorating.<\/p>\n One, entitled\u00a0\u201cCancer Is Striking More Young People, and Doctors Are Alarmed and Baffled\u201d<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0heralds:<\/p>\n \u201cCancer is hitting more young people in the U.S. and around the globe, baffling doctors. Diagnosis rates in the U.S. rose in 2019 to 107.8 cases per 100,000 people under 50, up 12.8% from 95.6 in 2000, federal data show.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Worldwide, the uptick is even starker, with a\u00a0BMJ Oncology<\/em>\u00a0review<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0finding:<\/p>\n \u201cIn 2019, the incidence number of early-onset cancer was 3.26\u2009 million, a 79.1% increase from 1990.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n This notwithstanding the fact that we\u2019re curing more cancers with precision medicine; cancer death rates are down by a third since 1991.\u00a0Notable improvements have been seen<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0in early detection and treatment for breast cancer with the five-year risk of death from breast cancer falling from about 14% for women diagnosed in the 1990s to about 5% for women diagnosed around 2015.<\/p>\n And lung cancer deaths are decreasing, not so much because we\u2019ve licked the disease but simply because smoking bans have had their impact.<\/p>\n But despite improvements in treatment, there\u2019s\u00a0more<\/em>\u00a0cancer:<\/p>\n \u201cThrough the end of 2019, incidence rates were increasing for some of the most common cancers, including breast, pancreatic, uterine, renal and HPV-related oral cancers, as well as melanoma.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n U.S. cancer cases are\u00a0projected to reach a record high<\/strong><\/a>\u2014over 2 million cases\u2014in 2024.<\/p>\n So, to echo Buffalo Springfield,\u00a0\u201cThere\u2019s something happening here\u2014what it is ain\u2019t exactly clear\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n