An early release of findings from an Australian study published in medRxiv this week showed the incidence of bowel cancer is up to three times higher among Australians born in the 1990s compared with the 1950s cohort.
Bowel cancer is now the leading cause of death in people aged 25 to 44 in Australia.
This is surprising. It wasn’t even in the top 5 a couple of years ago, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (gov).
[edit: another article the day after says it’s “the deadliest cancer for Australians aged 25 to 44”, which I suspect may have been mistakenly transformed into “leading cause of death”]
https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/life-expectancy-deaths/deaths-in-australia/contents/leading-causes-of-death
Thanks, I was finding it pretty astounding as well, so it’d make sense if it was the misinterpretation you’ve described. Maybe send the Guardian a message noting it so they can check?
I am astonished that “accidental poisoning” is higher than car crashes in 25–44.
Maybe it’s overdose from drugs?
And I’m also surprised it was higher for 25-44 than 15-24, although it could simply be that vehicle accidents knocked it down a spot.
Yeah I don’t have much of an intuition of how accidental poisoning would change between those ages, but 17–25 is famously the most dangerous age on the road, so I wasn’t surprised to see it higher.