Why Cancer Is Rising in Young People — What’s Really Causing It? | Dr. Dino Prato

What if I told you cancer is no longer behaving like an old person's disease? While people are building careers, raising kids, trying to live better in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and even into their 50s, the biology underneath them may be already shifting, leading to cancer. And what if I told you this is not just about bad luck or genetics alone, but it also has to do with, more importantly, lifestyle? But we live in such a toxic world, and that can increase our risk for cancer. What we're talking about are the total amount of toxic exposure factors that are carcinogenic, and that total burden can lead us to getting cancer at a young age. And that's why we're seeing cancer just grow at a crazy rate in young people. So don't miss this episode. We're going to go into this in detail so that you have a better understanding of how to prevent it and what to look for. I'm Dr. Dino Prato, founder of Invita Medical Center. For the last 25 years, my team and I have worked to help thousands of patients, those that have failed the top cancer hospitals across the country. How do we do it? With precision targeting, helping people find the right targets, which many patients are not on the right targets. We help them respond. Now, before you change anything, make sure you're working with a doctor and let's get started. The old model says that you get cancer in your 60s and 70s just because of aging, and maybe that's when you should start worrying. But the data's telling us something much more important. In 2026, the Harvard Gazette reported and highlighted a major global analysis showing that 13 cancers are rising in adults under 50 in at least 10 different countries, and 6 cancers— colorectal, cervical, pancreatic, prostate, kidney, and multiple myeloma— are rising faster in young adults than even in older adults. So why is this happening? We should actually be getting healthier. We need to look at what's going on. And when you look specifically at colorectal cancer, one of the clearest warning signs here, the American Cancer Society says the incidence is rising about 3% per year in adults from ages 20 to 49, even while rates are falling in other adults, suggesting early detection for some patients. People born in 1990 now carry about double the risk of colon cancer and 4 times the risk of rectal cancers compared to people that were born 1950. That's directly related to food and exposure to toxins, no doubt about that. That is totally not normal, and we need to think about that. Even if you're a cancer patient, think about how many toxins plays into the role of your cancer. You need to eliminate that. If you're a patient who wants to prevent cancer and you're running, exercising, doing all the right things, that's not enough. You need to also remove these toxic loads, making sure liver function, infections, other things are under control, because these are not random. And that's not something, you know, you can explain away by saying these are just an increase in genetics, or, you know, hey, we're screening more now, so we're finding things earlier. Sure, but we're not getting the better outcomes. And yes, awareness matters, but we need to go into the awareness of toxicity because that is not where the treatment is, but that's where the prevention is. Something deeper is changing. And if you want to understand where cancer is coming from in young adults, you want to ask yourself, what's the real question? Because in many cases, cancer does not appear overnight. The tumor may show up later, but the terrain, the environment of toxins and weak immunity, is often changing years ahead. And that's what we're trying to improve here. Now, here is where it gets a little uncomfortable. A lot of people still think that they're healthy because they look good or they feel good or they exercise and eat healthy. They can work and travel. That is not what I'm talking about because that doesn't necessarily 100% relate to reduction in cancer. Yes, exercise helps, eating healthier helps, but there are things underlying that are going on. A lot of people have fatty liver disease, they have metabolic disorders, their insulin levels are off. So they got metabolic problems that has nothing to do with diet and exercise, but maybe their liver. They may have clotting problems. See, these also connect to cardiovascular disease and they're not mutually exclusive. Gut dysbiosis, meaning they need help with the gut microbiome, they need help with liver function, they need better sleep, they need to reduce their total chemical exposures. Maybe they live in an environment where they're taking in too many chemicals or took too many unnecessary antibiotics, low fiber diets, poor food, chronic inflammation. And that's all happening quietly. And for some people at a young age, this turns on the oncogenes, the signals for cancer to develop. And so we want to shift this biology. So let's talk about one of the biggest changes of all— the gut. The gut microbiome is so important and really goes hand in hand with the liver. What are we putting into our body? So simple things that we can do. Get rid of all the refined carbohydrates, refined sugar products, start eating real whole foods, grass-fed meats, fish, wild-caught organic fruits and vegetables. That's a big play right there. Diversity in the diet, fermented foods, kefir. This is going to help our gut microbiome and our immune system. But we also need to do things like support our liver. Some people have genetic issues with liver metabolism, so they need support there. And no one talks about the liver enough because we always talk about eating a clean diet, but sometimes there are genetic factors in the liver that needs detoxification. Now, there's a lot of ways to go about about that, but in general, that's a great place to start. It doesn't just mean you're eating juices and fruits and vegetables and doing cleanses. I'm talking about in your day-to-day while you're eating, you're supporting the right quality fats, the right nutrients. So the liver is important, the gut microbiome is important. In 2025, a Nature study showed that DNA damage linked to colibactin, a bacteria toxin made from E. coli, was linked to higher amounts of colorectal cancer. Why? Because the infection went untreated and the toxins weren't moved out of the body. That's why we see an increase in colon cancer, not just infection, But think of that in every toxin. So by cleaning these areas of our body, we can help the 20, 30, 40, 50-year-olds, 60-year-olds, everybody reduce their risk for cancer. And if we're treating cancer, really help ourselves. Now, certain supplements, if you're cancer patients, like phosphatidylcholine, I'd stay away from. But other things to support the liver, very important— dandelion, glutathione. Helping that liver detoxify can become very important with patients and helping their gut microbiome and liver. Think about it this way: healthy gut microbiome and healthy liver means healthy metabolic systemic immunity and health. And the immune system is our first and last defense against cancer. So in some cases, we are rewriting DNA damage by doing these things. We're literally reversing oncogenes or epigenetic changes to become healthier. And this isn't just theory, this is from research. What I want you to see is that modern life is causing more overall problems. Look, we have women having more C-sections than they need to, or they're accessing more use of antibiotics, or more ultra-processed food that young men and women are eating, less fiber in the diet, less plant diversity, more sugar, more emulsifiers, more sedentary lifestyle, really this does not make for a good, healthy, energetic life. And so we want to fix that gut microbiome, we want to reduce the chronic inflammation, we want to help our liver work in an optimal way because the liver is a filter. Everything we absorb in our intestines goes through that liver, and that means your liver is constantly moving through metabolic waste, and this plays a huge part. So if your gut's inflamed and your liver is not optimized and you have poor diet, that's where the cancer risk comes in, and infections and chemical toxins. So we up the antioxidants, we clean the liver by making changes in the diet, We help the gut microbiome with dietary changes, and we get the right early screenings. We start young using the multi-early cancer detection tests that are coming out. And if we don't want to do a colonoscopy young, we do Cologuard. We use different tools to look for those early signals. And along the way, then we move to imaging or biopsy, or then refer to colonoscopy if, if appropriate. But this is critical because now we're finding things early, but we're also changing our diet and lifestyle so that we have less of a chance of getting cancer. This is what matters. Yes, everybody's focused on obesity, but obesity plays a role in cancer. Yes. Everybody's talking about insulin resistance, but it's huge in cancer. Liver dysfunction is huge in cancer. It's not just cosmetic issues we're talking about here. The National Cancer Institute says that excess body weight is linked to 13 types of cancer. Why? Inflammation, insulin, metabolic disorders, non-alcoholic fatty liver. Goes back to what I just said. I'm just saying it in a deeper way than just saying overweight. But we can fix these things because oftentimes these are problems because we have other issues in the metabolic area. Because insulin is not just a sugar hormone, it's a growth signal. Inflammation is not just a lab marker. It's a message. Fatty liver is not just an incidental finding in ultrasound, it's a metabolic warning light. And our genetics play a role there. We've heard this all the time: I've exercised, I eat right, why did I get cancer? Well, there's a genetic component, but most of it, let's say 80+ or 90+ percent, is diet and lifestyle. And as we get older, we haven't done the job of cleaning these areas of our body. Think of it as like our cars never had a proper oil change. We're not doing the right work on the gut, liver, and screenings that we need to do, because that's where we avoid cancer. Because it's not just food, it's exposure to total toxins. Think of it as a total toxic load. Researchers are increasingly worried about the chemicals in our world. Plastics or forever chemicals that are found in all of our environment, or low-dose chronic exposure to these things. A major 2024 PlasticChem report found that plastics may contain more than 16,000 chemicals. I did an episode on that. You may want to watch it. Plastics and links to cancer. And thousands are already considered hazardous. And that's what we need to be concerned about. These are the types of things we're exposed to every day. Large numbers of toxins from various areas is a lot of stress on our body. And anybody born in 1990 has a lot more toxins than somebody born in 1950. The exposures are so much higher because we're not talking about one bottle and, you know, one drink of water. We're talking about everyday exposures. We're talking about the entire load over the course of a lifetime. And that's the part that's playing into cancer. The National Cancer Institute is talking about these higher PFOA exposures. Again, these toxins linked to higher kidney cancer incidences and mortality and heavy exposures in population. So other reviews say that it's this evidence is so strong it's linked to kidney cancer, suggestive of breast cancer and testicular cancers, because of these hormone dysregulators that we see in things like chemicals, toxins, and plastics and other things we're exposed to. So we have to introduce the idea that our body has thousands of synthetic compounds and chemicals and infections that it gets exposed to. What are we doing to build our immune system, to clean our liver, to help our gut microbiome, to detox? See, yeah, exercise is important and so is eating right, but it in its own— if we don't take care of those things, we could be eating right and exercising and still develop cancer because we haven't done that deeper metabolic reset at the liver level, at the gut microbiome, at the immunity level of eliminating an infection. So I hope you're starting to see this because it's not as simple as, I live a healthy life, I do a triathlon, I do whatever. That isn't the answer. Yes, those are good things. I don't want to take away— exercise is very important, but it's in perspective with everything else you're doing. I'm not telling you that every young person gets cancer because they drink from a plastic bottle, and I'm not telling you that every person has high toxic loads, but it's very common in our lifestyles. Look around you, look at what the kids eating in school, look at what type of exercise they're doing, look at the exposure they have to so many toxins. These are metabolic pressures. They disrupt gut microbiome and they're going to push genes. So if you have something in your body that's genetically weak, it's going to push towards that weak point, right? Kids aren't sleeping well. They get— they're living too much of a sedentary lifestyle. We have an increase in obesity, ultra-processed food, hormone disruptions. I mean, it's crazy. Even in certain populations, they're having a hard time having babies because their hormones are all off. They have high infections and chronic inflammatory signaling. This is a big problem in our world. Today. So we don't want to just, you know, say, hey, everybody needs to do a liver cleanse, but we need to look into that microbiome, liver health, systemic health. There's not one bulletproof plan, but it's what you do every day to support these things. We can build immunity, we can really help people avoid infectious exposures that are linked to cancers and that are oncogenic. But that's why it's so important to be working with an integrative doctor to clean these areas of your body, get rid of the gut problems, the, the heartburn, the bowel changes, get those healthy, get the liver healthy, because that is where your dividends are going to pay. It's in cardiovascular disease. It's in liver. It's an autoimmune disease. It's in the deeper diseases. Young people often don't know this information. They get— they kind of get dismissed, right? They're too young. Oh, you can do whatever you want. But today we have to be much more careful. They are related to a lot of stressors, and both emotional and physical, into their health. Irritable bowel syndrome. They get hemorrhoids younger. These are toxin exposures and stress exposures that we didn't have necessarily years ago. It's in a different way. And so we need to educate on good dietary choices, good lifestyle choices, early screenings, and getting to the core of the problem. We need to start screenings way earlier. I like people starting when they're running their blood tests, look for multi early cancer detection tests, start running 'em in your 20s. There's nothing wrong with that. Maybe every 2 to 3 years you're gonna pick something up, you treat it and you're done. The, the most it's gonna cost you, these tests are gonna get cheaper, a few hundred dollars extra per year. But over time it's so huge because it removes the panic and I don't want to be one of those people that gets a disease young. Yeah, we took care of it. It's out. We've changed the diet and lifestyle. I'm less worried about it and I feel better. I have more energy. I have a better quality of life. I'm following things like, uh, diversify diet, like maybe the Mediterranean diet where you have fruits, vegetables, legumes, things I can digest, olive oil. I'm not eating stuff out of a can or out of a, a box. I'm, I'm eating healthy whole foods that I pick, maybe grow. These things go a long way, but I'm helping support liver health. I'm changing my bile acids and changing my microbiome, my inflammatory, my insulin, my gut-liver axis. See, that's how we're gonna get to the prevention of cancer because by doing those things and early screening, it's not a magic bullet. It's going to give us the answer of less cancers, people living healthier, longer, and having more energy and vitality. Vitality, less mental health problems, because again, the gut and the brain are connected. So a lot of this is really simple, but we move away from it and we're expecting some big pharma company to fix it, and they're not. Has a lot to do with the way we eat and the way we live and the things we do to take care of ourselves. So I just want you to see this as a very powerful component to helping heal the body. You have a lot more control than you think. You can do so much to help yourself. The little things you do every day pay massive dividends years on. What you teach your grandchildren and children about diet and lifestyle and decision-making is going to change their life and their quality and length of life, it's going to go a very long way. Now, I know that 90% of you watching this have not subscribed. Please subscribe to help us get the word out there about precision oncology. There's not a one-size-fits-all. People need to do powerful things to improve their life. And I know here we're talking about diet again, but it's so important because if we can encourage people to eat polyphenol-rich foods, get their blueberries and, you know, green tea, and improve their spices and gut diversity— it sounds so simple, but it's going to have huge dividends to building their immune system and helping them be healthy. I hope you found this episode episode helpful, and may the Lord bless you on your journey to healing.