Why are so many young people getting cancer? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why are so many young people getting cancer?

#31

Post by SubiculumCode » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 5:17 PM UTC

noIdeaTheSecond wrote: post #2

My wild guess before reading the article: unhealthy food. A big part of which is herbicides and pesticides. I will now read the article.

We are exposed to more more types of chemicals in our every day than ever before. Some offenders to me, besides herbicides and pesticides are:

[1]: ubiquitous flame retardants, which in America they put in every couch, carpet, and mattress

[2]: ubiquitous microplastics pollution,

[3]: joint effect of Obesity and Ultra-Processed Foods

[1] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2022&q=flame+retar... [2] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo... [3] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo...

Re: Why are so many young people getting cancer?

#32

Post by loeg » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 5:18 PM UTC

noIdeaTheSecond wrote: post #2

My wild guess before reading the article: unhealthy food. A big part of which is herbicides and pesticides. I will now read the article.

It's mostly obesity, which the article sort of mentions ("known links to obesity") but kind of obscures by saying "obesity does not fully account for the rise" and "a clear answer remained elusive." The medical establishment and journalism have found it extremely uncomfortable over the past decade to notice that obesity has negative health consequences because it might embarrass some fat people, and this is more of that. We know obesity is really bad for you, including causing higher rates of cancer. We know over what time periods young people became more obese.

Have diets really gotten noticeably unhealthier over recent decades? I'm not sure that's the case. We used herbicides and pesticides 20 years ago too, of course. It's becoming increasingly clear that fiber intake is linked to cancer rates, but again I'm not sure diets 20 years ago had higher fiber on average.

Re: Why are so many young people getting cancer?

#33

Post by owenpalmer » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 5:18 PM UTC

ifjfkfkfkfj wrote: post #18

[flagged]

Why did you write it as "1969ties"?

Re: Why are so many young people getting cancer?

#34

Post by ornornor » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 5:21 PM UTC

economistbob wrote: post #15

No till farming is probably helping. I learned this year what that really means by seeing farms where they spray herbicide to kill the plants,then they plant new seed while the old dead is still standing around. They then use herbicide as a desiccant to kill the plant at harvest. They probably use pesticides too. The cycle then repeats. I was so disgusted as seeing new crops sprouting amongst the dead vegetation. It…

That’s how they do lentils in Canada. They use planes to spray roundup to kill the plant (because it doesn’t die naturally like it does in Europe, because of the climate), then harvest it, then sell it in Europe (without even rinsing them).

For European lentil growers it’s illegal to use roundup. But if the roundup has been applied outside of the EU it’s not toxic nor forbidden anymore and it can be eaten by humans.

That’s one of many many many examples. We live in an insane society.

Re: Why are so many young people getting cancer?

#35

Post by nullbio » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 5:21 PM UTC

The normalization of anabolic steroid usage is likely a large contributor to certain cancers in men.

Re: Why are so many young people getting cancer?

#36

Post by kaikai » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

economistbob wrote: post #15

No till farming is probably helping. I learned this year what that really means by seeing farms where they spray herbicide to kill the plants,then they plant new seed while the old dead is still standing around. They then use herbicide as a desiccant to kill the plant at harvest. They probably use pesticides too. The cycle then repeats. I was so disgusted as seeing new crops sprouting amongst the dead vegetation. It…

I don’t doubt what you’ve seen, and how some farmers are doing no-till.

However, there are better ways to do no-till that don’t require large herbicide input. No-till is really good for reducing the amount of water needed to farm and preserving soil structure, which is beneficial for all kinds of reasons. It’s not inherently a bad thing.

Re: Why are so many young people getting cancer?

#37

Post by lizardking » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 5:24 PM UTC

SubiculumCode wrote: post #20

Of my close friends of my youth, two have died of cancer before the age of 40. Fuck cancer.

My college roommate died of cancer before 30. Fuck cancer

Re: Why are so many young people getting cancer?

#38

Post by witx » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 5:25 PM UTC

wavesounds wrote: post #27

This would be a great thing for all of the AI companies to devote some energy towards. Especially with their reputations in decline. Surely there must be some patterns the AIs could find if we had enough data about the people who died from cancer.

Yes, one good data point is pollution, which all these companies are prollific at.

Re: Why are so many young people getting cancer?

#39

Post by mixmastamyk » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 5:31 PM UTC

VirusNewbie wrote: post #21

noIdeaTheSecond wrote: post #2

My wild guess before reading the article: unhealthy food. A big part of which is herbicides and pesticides. I will now read the article.

Don't people eat more healthy than they did 50 years ago? Weren't microwave dinners a big thing in the 70s?

“TV” dinners were, packaged in aluminum foil. Microwaves didn’t become prevalent until perhaps the mid 80s.

Re: Why are so many young people getting cancer?

#40

Post by stronglikedan » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 5:31 PM UTC

ifjfkfkfkfj wrote: post #18

[flagged]

> Current "safe" dosage on coffeine is like 8 shots a day. No side effects!

Still is, since none of the side effects of caffeine could be considered "dangerous". (Unless you're taking absurdly large amounts, of course, just like anything else.)