An increase in cancers among people 55 years old and younger may be related to accelerated aging in recent generations, according to a study presented at a conference earlier this month.
Experts say years of research support this, though more questions remain to be answered.
Researchers from the Washington University in St. Louis’s medical school presented the findings from their study on accelerated aging earlier this month at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting.
Ruiyi Tian, one of the authors of the study, and the other researchers hypothesized that an increase in biological age indicating accelerated aging may be behind the development of early-onset cancers seen in people under the age of 55.
“Accumulating evidence suggests that the younger generations may be aging more swiftly than anticipated, likely due to earlier exposure to various risk factors and environmental insults. However, the impact of accelerated aging on early-onset cancer development remains unclear,” Tian said in her presentation.
For their study, the researchers looked at the data of 148,724 people that was kept in the UK Biobank database, which collects in-depth genetic and lifestyle information on participants to help inform research on diseases.
“We speculate that common pathways, such as chronic inflammation and cellular senescence, may link accelerated aging to the development of early-onset cancers,” Yin Cao, a Washington University translational cancer epidemiologist at Siteman Cancer Center under whose lab the study was conducted, told The Hill.
Among all early-onset cancers, “cancers of the lung, gastrointestinal system, and uterus” were most strongly associated with accelerated aging in the study, according to Cao.
The study did not identify specific factors that could be contributing to accelerated aging though Cao noted previous research has linked “environmental and lifestyle influences” to potential causes. This universe of factors could include such factors as increased air travel, more exposure to radiation and the presence of tiny “forever chemicals” that have been linked to health problems.
The full findings are expected to be published later this year. Though this research may be alarming, experts in aging say it backs up what has long been understood by those studying aging.
“It’s been known in the aging field for many years now that accelerated aging processes [are] predisposed to cancer,” said James Kirkland, Noaber Foundation professor of aging research at the Mayo Clinic.
Conditions like diabetes, pre-eclampsia, obesity and undergoing cancer treatments have all been associated with younger populations developing an accelerated state of aging that leads to an accumulation of senescent cells which no longer divide but do not die. These cells secrete molecules that trigger inflammation and increase with age.
