Credit: Daily Mail

Mirroring the decades-long increase in obesity rates in the U.S., cancers that are thought to be driven at least in part by excess weight are also on the rise among people under age 50, a new study suggests.

Rates for six of 12 cancers related to obesity have been increasing in successive generations of young adults, with the sharpest increases in the youngest age groups, researchers reported Sunday in The Lancet Public Health.

The new study may serve as a warning that if the obesity epidemic continues, there will be an explosion of these fat-sensitive cancers in the years to come, said the study’s senior author, Dr. Ahmedin Jemal, scientific vice president of surveillance and health services research at the American Cancer Society.

“This finding signals an increased burden of obesity-related cancers in older adults in the future and calls for actions to mitigate this burden,” he said in an email.

The researchers analyzed data from a central database of state cancer registries, focusing on new diagnoses of 30 types of […]