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.

My personal bugbear is the lack of sleep & entirely tied to the phone for that.

I remember being in my 20s and not being able to sleep, but the most distracting thing I could reach for was a pile of books in my bedside table.

Now, I can't sleep, there's an endless stream of things to keep me awake.

The jokes about "5G gives you cancer" is probably not as funny, if you think about the sleep you miss while you doom scroll.

I believe that county specific studies seem to support your thesis. For instance, countries that eat less processed food (eg Italy) and have stricter rules about pesticides didn't see an increase in stuff like colorectal cancer [1]. Some cancers incidence did grow, but others decreased keeping incidence more or less the same.

[1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03008916241297078

What a shame that "no definitive culprit yet" somehow becomes "nothing specific to worry about yet, carry on" instead of "we can't answer because there are too many horrifying trends all at once".

Plastics, the increase in background radiation, pesticides, and or a side effect of extra calories are all possibilities. Daily allergy medicines might also be a factor as those reduce immune response slightly.

Why would you leave that comment?

An uninformed comment before you read the article isn't helping anyone.

Besides all the other factors mentioned, which I think are all valid, there's also indoor air pollution from things like aerosol sprays, cleaning products, fragrance, creams, soaps, other products.

If anything, food supply in the past 20 years uses a lot less pesticides and herbicides: look at the rise of organic sections in any supermarket.

Since 2000 organic food went from niche to mainstream.

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...

Upon reading: A bit unclear but yes it seems like unhealthy food + new microbe mutations + obesity

They talk about obesity as a separate cause than ultra processed food, I thought it was quite related, something I need to look into

Your guess is not wild at all, and the article implies that (at least until the payment popup shows up)

My grandmother used to grow her own vegetables and fruits and had a minimal chicken farm for eggs until the early 2000s, all in her regular backyard, it's not ancient history or something that required a lot of real state.

Now there's a 15-story building and no land whatsoever where her house used to be.

Well since we're speculating randomly I vote for

* too much rage bait videos raising rage hormones

* too much performing for social media

* suppressing expression for fear of cancellation

* exposure to too many varieties of food/cuisine

* video games

* anime

Yes, these are all tongue-in-cheek but come on, the random speculation here is all ridiculous

My guess is unchecked capitalism.

I won't bother to 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?

It's an easy guess because either human genetics either radical changed or the environment did

"Silent Spring" came out over sixty years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring

got massive coverage including a worldwide CBS News broadcast back then

Government and industry were never held to account and instead deregulated everything

We still allow leaded gas to be sprayed all around airports where everyone is exposed during travel and neighborhoods nearby

Golf Course neighborhoods are some of the highest cancer rates in the country

We've learned nothing and now the environment is so saturated with toxins that the immune system is under attack from birth