People born in the 1980s and 1990s are biologically older than their parents and grandparents were at the same chronological age — and that faster biological aging is associated with a measurably higher risk of developing cancer before 55, according to a large study published June 22, 2026 in Nature Medicine by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
The finding may help explain a puzzle that has unsettled oncologists for the past decade: why are rates of colon, breast, kidney, uterine, and other cancers rising sharply among adults under 50, while those same cancers continue to decline in older adults who have had decades more time to accumulate cellular damage?
