BUFFALO, N.Y. — Dr. Joyce Ohm, Chair of Cancer Genetics and Genomics at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center is an epigenetics expert.
She is aware of the uptick in cancer cases among people under age 50.
"We wish we completely understood it. It's something that's been observed in the clinic for quite some time. These early onset cancers are things that normally we wouldn't see until patients would be in their 60's, 70's and later in life, and now we're seeing them in not only the 50's but the 40's and the 30's and even into our young adult population. Diseases like colon cancer, colorectal cancer, lung cancer are popping up in younger and younger individuals, and we don't completely understand why. It's likely a combination of things, whether it's additional genetic changes or environmental things that are starting to affect us.," Dr. Ohm said.
When it comes to genetics, Dr. Ohm said it's not genetic in the traditional sense.
"The body accumulates epigenetic changes, and that's what controls your genes and all kinds of environmental factors play a role in our epigenome and in our epigenetic aging," she said.
"Stressful environments stress in our lives, stress from the neighborhoods that we live in, and the things that we're exposed to, even interpersonal stress can really affect the health of our body and our immune system that plays a really important role in not only our cancer risk, but how we respond to therapy," according to the doctor.
Diet and exercise can improve the epigenetic age.
"There's always going to be things that are out of our control, but we can take steps to reduce stress in our life to reduce our exposures to toxic chemicals and to help build in those healthy. Lifestyle changes that may help counteract some of this."
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