0:00

What do James Vanderbeek, Duane Wade, and

0:02

Kate Middleton have in common? They're

0:05

all youngish people who have been

0:07

diagnosed with cancer. And it's not just

0:09

famous people. Younger and younger people are

0:11

getting cancer more and more. That's facts.

0:14

So we here today explained, wanted to

0:16

figure out why. And figure out how

0:18

people are dealing with this. So we

0:21

sent out our producer, Victoria Chamberlain, to

0:23

a meet-up for young adults with cancer.

0:25

Victoria, where'd you go? I didn't go

0:27

anywhere, Sean. You didn't go anywhere, you

0:29

failed. The pandemic changed everything, including

0:31

cancer support groups. So there's one

0:33

that used to happen in person.

0:35

And then it shifted to zoom

0:37

so that more people from around

0:39

the country could go and people

0:41

who are immune compromised because they

0:43

have cancer. Okay, so you hit up a zoom.

0:46

I hit up a zoom with a whole bunch

0:48

of 30 to 40 year olds who are in

0:50

the thick of cancer diagnosis and survives and

0:52

survivorship. Okay, what Victoria learned coming

0:54

up on today explained. Hey everyone,

0:57

Sean here. I'm really excited

0:59

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2:23

explained Sean Ramos Verm here with

2:25

Victoria Chamberlain Victoria you go to

2:27

a cancer meetup from the comfort

2:29

of your own home. It's a

2:31

zoom. Who is organizing this thing?

2:33

So it's this non-profit organization that's

2:35

based here in DC. It's called

2:37

the Smith Center for healing and

2:39

the arts. And they support cancer

2:41

patients in a bunch of different

2:43

ways. They do things like therapeutic

2:45

art and poetry and a whole

2:47

lot of support groups. But their

2:49

whole thing is that they want

2:51

people to feel like they're going

2:53

to be okay, no matter what

2:55

happens to them. Nice. And you

2:57

go to one of these support

2:59

groups remotely. What was it like? What's

3:02

the vibe? Is it like the

3:04

saddest meetup you've ever gone to?

3:06

Yeah, I'd be lying if I

3:08

said it wasn't sad. I mean,

3:10

it's like a bunch of people

3:12

that I would consider to be

3:14

pretty young who have just been

3:16

diagnosed with cancer, but there were

3:18

all these really dynamic conversations going on

3:20

between the people talking about how

3:22

to live while they're going through

3:24

this. And it made me just

3:26

kind of realize sitting with these

3:28

people like how much we don't

3:30

know about cancer, about what it's

3:32

like to live with cancer as

3:34

a person in your mid-thirties. And

3:36

the people in the group just really

3:38

wanted to stress how different their

3:40

challenges are as millennials than like

3:42

a person in their 70s. You

3:44

know, a person who's older, like

3:47

their kids might be grown, but

3:49

a millennial might have like little

3:51

kids in the house. My son

3:53

was 18 months when I was

3:55

diagnosed. Obviously, like, I need to.

3:57

in order to keep my child in

3:59

daycare, because I'm not able to

4:01

physically take care of him. Also,

4:03

like, trying to maintain normalcy for

4:05

him. When you're in your late

4:07

20s and 30s, your careers just

4:09

starting to take off, and then

4:11

you get a cancer diagnosis, and

4:13

that can just kind of hit

4:15

the pause button on the whole thing.

4:17

I was at the peak of

4:19

my career. You know, I was

4:21

a BP with a financial institution.

4:23

I was traveling. I was just

4:25

doing all the things. graduated from

4:27

law school in 2019, some kind

4:29

of in this like build-up period

4:31

in my career. What felt very

4:33

crushing when I had time to kind

4:36

of sit and try to process

4:38

everything is that it's really mourning

4:40

a lot of loss of what

4:42

your life won't be. The day

4:44

that I went to get a

4:46

biopsy, my promotion was announced at

4:48

work, the day after I got

4:50

a call saying, you have breast

4:52

cancer. And as if dating wasn't

4:54

hard enough as it is dealing with

4:56

the physical and emotional stuff that

4:58

happens and the craziness of cancer,

5:00

it just makes that so much

5:02

harder. And if I want to

5:04

go out and like meet people

5:06

and date people, I have had

5:08

a unilateral mastectomy and when I

5:10

show up, I have to both

5:12

be physically naked and emotionally naked. But

5:15

there was also this element of

5:17

surprise, like even though... You're hearing

5:19

tons of news stories out there

5:21

about millennials getting cancer. You mentioned

5:23

a couple of them before. We've

5:25

got Princess Kate and Chadwood Bozeman.

5:27

It's still super shocking to be

5:29

sitting there and receive that diagnosis

5:31

and then to hear that other people

5:33

you know or maybe people that

5:35

you don't know are young and

5:37

getting cancer. One of the most

5:39

frustrating comments that I would hear

5:41

people say is, oh, you're so

5:43

young. And to me, that's... It's

5:45

frustrating because it's like cancer does

5:47

not care. Cancer does not care

5:49

what age you are. It does

5:51

not care what your life was like,

5:53

what drenched you had, what... hopes

5:55

with thinking you were about to

5:57

do, it does not care. It

5:59

just comes in and it interrupts

6:01

and it just intersects. You always

6:03

think, oh, it won't be me.

6:05

It can't be me. And I

6:08

think that's the biggest thing that

6:10

this data that's out there has to

6:12

be telling us and our peers

6:14

is that we can no longer

6:16

just assume it. It can't be

6:18

me and we need our health

6:20

care system also to be that

6:22

messenger and to step up because

6:24

no one had ever said to

6:26

me even being the daughter of

6:28

a breast cancer survivor and with a

6:30

father fighting cancer you are at risk. This

6:33

is exactly what we wanted to

6:35

focus on today and this is

6:37

exactly why we reached out to

6:39

our colleague Dylan Scott because we

6:41

wanted someone who's written about this

6:43

to just tell us that we're

6:45

not just imagining things, right? It

6:47

feels like way more millennials and

6:49

younger people in the 30s and

6:51

40s are getting cancer. Yes,

6:53

Sean, as a millennial who is

6:56

also a hypochondriac, I regret to

6:58

inform you that younger people, people

7:00

under 55, which is usually the

7:02

definition of an early onset cancer

7:05

case. are in fact getting cancer

7:07

more often. There's a couple of

7:09

ways to slice it. The Wall

7:12

Street Journal ran an analysis last

7:14

year of National Cancer Institute data.

7:16

And the way they put it

7:18

was one in five new coral

7:21

rectal cancer patients in the US

7:23

is under 55, which is. Twice

7:25

the rate that we saw in

7:27

1995. There was another study that

7:29

found that I think it was

7:31

between 1990 and 2019, the rates

7:33

overall of cancer among younger people

7:35

had increased by 80%. It seems

7:37

like no matter how you look

7:39

at it, and I looked at

7:42

a variety of studies from my

7:44

story, cancer rates among young people

7:46

are increasing, which I don't know

7:48

about you, I feel like, fits

7:50

with just my like observations in

7:52

the world. And you're using some studies

7:54

from the 90s to compare rates, but

7:56

when did we start seeing that more

7:59

young people are... getting cancer? Yeah, it's

8:01

definitely something that's built slowly over time.

8:03

I talked to a guy at Georgetown

8:05

named John Marshall and you know he's

8:08

been in this field for decades and

8:10

he said you know at the beginning

8:12

of his career he never would have

8:14

seen a cancer patient under the age

8:17

of 50. But these days he sees

8:19

it all the time and the way

8:21

he put it to me is that

8:23

at least anecdotally you know people who

8:26

practice cancer medicine who treat cancer patients,

8:28

you know, it's like everybody kind of

8:30

started to notice at the same time

8:32

about a decade ago, like, huh, it's

8:35

suddenly, it seems like I'm starting to

8:37

get more and more young people coming

8:39

in with more advanced cancers and more

8:41

aggressive cancers. And so then we started

8:44

to see some of this data that

8:46

I'm referencing that sought to quantify, like

8:48

how big is the change really been

8:50

and they... They did confirm that like,

8:53

yeah, this isn't just people's perceptions. At

8:55

the population level, there are higher rates

8:57

of cancers among young people. What kinds

8:59

of cancers, Dylan? You mentioned colorectal cancer.

9:02

Is it just that one? Are there

9:04

other ones? Colorectal cancer, I think, is

9:06

the big one. It is that, like,

9:08

if you look at the incident rates

9:10

in some of these studies, besides breast

9:13

cancer, it is the type of cancer

9:15

that has the highest incidence among young

9:17

adults. But it's not just colorectal cancer.

9:19

It's uterine cancers, gallblatter. kidney cancers people

9:22

might have heard about Dwayne Wade who

9:24

is like by this definition a young

9:26

adult to find out obviously at 41

9:28

years old pretty healthy guy that I

9:31

did have cancer so I have one

9:33

kidney and I have another kidney that

9:35

is 60% they took 40% of my

9:37

kidney to make sure that they can

9:40

get all the cancer off of it.

9:42

It seems to be sort of up

9:44

and down the digestive track where this

9:46

seems to be happening with the one

9:49

exception is breast cancer which we've continued

9:51

to see a higher rate of breast

9:53

cancer among young people over the same

9:55

period but if we set that aside

9:58

which is obviously like a big exception

10:00

it seems to be a lot happening

10:02

yeah up and down the digestive That's

10:04

where we're seeing in particular these big

10:07

increases over time among young people. What

10:09

is going on in the digestive tract,

10:11

Dylan? So this is maybe the most

10:13

interesting thing that I learned in reporting

10:16

out this study and talking to a

10:18

bunch of these cancer researchers who are...

10:20

as befuddled by all of this as

10:22

we are. So it seems that your

10:25

individual risk of many different types of

10:27

cancers actually depends on something that's totally

10:29

out of your control, which is when

10:31

you were born. Like

10:33

somebody who was born in

10:36

1975 had nearly twice the

10:38

chance of developing like an

10:40

intestinal cancer compared to somebody

10:42

who was born in 1955,

10:44

20 years earlier. And likewise,

10:46

if we look like at

10:49

younger people, people born in

10:51

1990, they're at even a

10:53

higher risk of developing cancers

10:55

than those people born in

10:57

1955 or even 1975. a

11:00

couple of things likely at

11:02

work here. One does seem

11:04

to be like the changes

11:06

in food production and the

11:08

proliferation of processed foods, which

11:11

is obviously something that like

11:13

basically if you eat in

11:15

the modern world, you're consuming

11:17

more processed foods than people

11:19

used to. And so there

11:22

have been like systematic reviews

11:24

of the available literature, including

11:26

one that was published in

11:28

2022, that have said like

11:30

if you eat more deep

11:33

fried foods, if you eat

11:35

more processed foods, if you

11:37

eat foods high in fat,

11:39

sugary drinks and desserts, and

11:41

if you're really bad about

11:44

eating fiber and things that

11:46

are really good for your

11:48

digestive system. you are more

11:50

likely to develop cancer. And

11:52

so that tracks, you know,

11:55

when we think about like

11:57

the obesity crisis, like we

11:59

know that our diets have

12:01

been getting worse and they've

12:03

been contributing, you know, to

12:06

all kinds of negative health

12:08

outcomes like diabetes and heart

12:10

disease, and it seems like

12:12

cancer is another example of

12:14

like how these change in

12:17

our diet and our food

12:19

production may be leading to

12:21

adverse outcomes. There's also been

12:23

a lot of focus on

12:25

microplastics and we've likewise seen

12:28

that those just like have

12:30

proliferated in the environment over

12:32

the period from like you

12:34

know the 70s to today

12:36

where we've seen this big

12:39

increase in cancer incidents among

12:41

young people and there was

12:43

actually a specific paper published

12:45

by a research team based

12:47

in New Zealand that basically

12:50

tracked the timeline of microplastics

12:52

in the environment and the

12:54

cancer rates among young people

12:56

and they basically found that

12:58

like they seem to be

13:01

happening in parallel. It's an

13:03

alchemy of all these things.

13:05

It's a combination of we're

13:07

eating worse, we're getting exposed

13:09

to the stuff in our

13:12

environment, we're still drinking a

13:14

lot, we're not getting enough

13:16

sleep, we're probably not exercising

13:18

enough either, and when you

13:20

stir all of those things

13:23

together, you have more young

13:25

people developing cancer. when we

13:27

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so I think like as those consumer

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products keep developing like that should allow

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us to screen more people screen younger

16:37

people and hopefully catch some of these

16:39

cancers earlier so that we can have

16:41

better outcomes and so that's on the

16:43

that's on the diagnostic side in terms

16:46

of treatment like you know I've been

16:48

writing about this for 10 years now

16:50

like there's been a ton of progress

16:52

with what are called immunotherapies, which is,

16:55

you know, the old way of treating

16:57

cancer has been. We're going to just

16:59

blast this shit with as much

17:01

radiation as we can find and

17:03

hope that that kills the cancer

17:05

because otherwise we don't know how

17:07

to do it, but it obviously

17:09

has all of these really terrible

17:11

side effects. People feel horrible, they

17:14

lose their hair, whatever. And what

17:16

we're trying to do now with

17:18

these immunotherapies is like, let's remove

17:20

radiation and all this chemical nastiness

17:22

from the equation. Let's like train

17:24

the body's immune system to fight

17:26

these cancers on its own. A

17:30

lot of the improvements that we have

17:32

seen to like cancer prognosis,

17:34

especially among older people, has

17:36

been because we're developing these

17:38

immunotherapies that are, you know,

17:40

teaching the body how to

17:42

fight the cancer by itself.

17:44

And then when you combine

17:46

things like genetic sequencing, like

17:48

cancer, we talk about cancer

17:50

as like one thing, but

17:52

it's actually like, you know,

17:54

thousands upon thousands of different

17:56

diseases. And being able to

17:58

identify like, like, in your

18:00

colon. But if we can test

18:03

it genetically and figure out exactly

18:05

what type of colon cancer it

18:08

is, then we can get

18:10

you, make sure we get you

18:12

the exact right therapy that you

18:14

know has these proteins or

18:16

whatever that can better target that

18:19

cancer. There's some good news in

18:21

theory, better diagnostics, better treatment,

18:23

but we wanted to hear from

18:26

someone who's experienced it. So we

18:28

turned to someone producer Victoria met

18:30

at that cancer meet-up, Kate Zickle.

18:33

How do I identify myself

18:35

on the show? I'm from Alexandria,

18:37

Virginia. I run a digital marketing

18:40

agency out of my home,

18:42

married, which is awesome. I love

18:44

that. No one's ever said that

18:46

one before. That's good. That's

18:48

good. Kate told us that those

18:51

immunotherapies that Dylan was just talking

18:53

about are the reason she's living

18:56

a full life right now. Let

18:58

me read this way. Were

19:00

it not for the advances in

19:02

medical technology that have happened just

19:05

in the last five to

19:07

ten years, I may not be

19:09

here. Kate had cancer twice. The

19:12

first time she discovered it

19:14

was in 2017 after her husband

19:16

found a lump in her breast.

19:18

Went through chemo radiation. double mastectomy

19:21

reconstruction surgery took about a year

19:23

from September of 2017 to

19:25

September of 2018 and then after

19:28

that thought I was in remission

19:30

took hormone suppressors for two

19:32

years before being diagnosed with a

19:34

recurrence at stage four metastatic disease

19:37

after it had moved to

19:39

my bones and my lungs. So

19:41

the cancer is still there. Yeah,

19:44

so I've had metastatic cancer for

19:46

almost five years and the thing

19:48

about metastatic breast cancer now

19:50

is that it's it's not always

19:53

the immediate death sentence that it

19:55

used to be. You can

19:57

actually live a pretty long time

20:00

with metastatic breast cancer depending on

20:02

where it is in your

20:04

body and how quickly it grows.

20:07

And can I ask how old

20:09

you were when you discovered that

20:11

you had this cancer back in

20:14

2017? Yeah, so I was

20:16

originally diagnosed with breast cancer at

20:18

29 years old. Huh. No family

20:21

history at all. No indications

20:23

that that would be a thing

20:25

in my life. And, you know,

20:27

you just hear all the

20:29

ads and the awareness about self-checks

20:32

that you should do, and we

20:34

typically don't recommend mammograms until the

20:37

age of 40. or actually 50

20:39

really, but they're starting to

20:41

change that now that we're seeing

20:43

more and more young women diagnosed

20:46

with breast cancer. So I

20:48

was pretty young. I was 29,

20:50

and then I was, I think,

20:53

33, when my recurrence was

20:55

diagnosed. Yeah. Is it weird for

20:57

you? I'm sure times throughout this

20:59

process, you've looked like you had

21:02

cancer, and I'm looking at you

21:04

right now. for all those

21:06

people listening on the radio or

21:09

on their phones or in their

21:11

cars or whatever it might

21:13

be who can't see you, you

21:15

do not look like someone I

21:18

guess who has cancer, but

21:20

I guess is that like a

21:22

perception you have to deal with?

21:25

I mean that people think someone

21:27

with cancer is going to look

21:29

a certain way or not

21:31

look a certain way? Yeah, people

21:34

definitely still have the idea that

21:36

a cancer patient looks wan

21:38

and thin and pale and... People

21:41

tend to have a very

21:43

specific idea in mind when

21:45

they think of cancer patients.

21:47

And because cancer treatments have

21:50

changed so drastically, even in

21:52

just in the last 10

21:54

years, it's actually very different

21:56

now. I looked normal. You

21:58

wouldn't know. But I was

22:00

still in the middle of

22:02

all. of these crazy painful

22:04

processes. It's a good thing.

22:06

We're very grateful that those

22:08

technologies exist now where we

22:10

can be in treatment and

22:12

look great. But just because

22:14

we look great doesn't mean

22:16

that we are. And sometimes

22:18

that can be difficult to

22:20

explain. What would you say to

22:22

people who live in fear from

22:25

what they've just heard from you?

22:27

I would say don't freak out.

22:30

until a medical professional tells you

22:32

to freak out. Okay. Know your

22:34

own body. You know most of

22:37

us do anyway, but like know

22:39

your body. Know what your normal

22:41

feels like. And then if something

22:44

isn't normal, ask. And if your

22:46

doctors ignore you, which most doctors

22:49

are great and they will take

22:51

you seriously. But if they don't,

22:53

get a second opinion. Ask. Take

22:56

the time out of work. to

22:58

go to those appointments if you

23:00

need to. Do your own homework.

23:03

Get a genetic test. You can

23:05

do that. They'll take a blood

23:07

test and they'll go through your

23:10

genetics and they'll tell you what

23:12

your risk factors are. The treatment

23:15

I am on now came into

23:17

existence between 2017 and 2020. The

23:19

one that I will go on

23:22

next came out five years ago.

23:24

The changes and the speed at

23:26

which medical... Technology is keeping pace

23:29

is incredible. We are so lucky

23:31

to live in a time where

23:33

that is true. The goal here

23:36

is to beat the clock. Where

23:38

as a survivor now who's on

23:41

treatment, my goal is to make

23:43

the current treatment I'm on last

23:45

as long as possible so that

23:48

the next treatment I'm on will

23:50

be available. And then that one

23:52

will last a long time until

23:55

we've got a new study that

23:57

proves another drug. that's available. And

24:00

As long as we're able to

24:03

keep base with that, the longer

24:05

we live. So I would just

24:07

encourage anybody who's kind of curious

24:10

about this, like, do your homework,

24:12

ask your doctors, like those trials

24:15

are, those clinical trials are out

24:17

there and we need them. We're

24:19

desperate for them. We are dying

24:22

without them. And anybody who wants

24:24

to cut funding to those trials

24:27

can just give me a call.

24:29

What would you say to them?

24:31

Without these trials, people will die.

24:34

Without these trials, people will not

24:36

live as long as they could

24:39

with them. Without these trials, you

24:41

were taking away the hope of

24:43

others. Sorry, I'm like shaking now.

24:46

I'm like so angry about this.

24:48

The people who are funding these

24:51

trials need to understand that it

24:53

is part of their job to

24:55

keep us alive, to keep us

24:58

alive, to keep us or medication

25:00

moving forward. By taking that away

25:03

from us, you're killing, you're literally

25:05

killing us. By taking that away

25:07

from us, you are taking away

25:10

years that we could have with

25:12

our children, years that we could

25:15

spend with our parents. If you

25:17

take away the trials that gave

25:19

us the drugs that help us

25:22

live longer, you need to answer

25:24

for that. You need to be

25:27

held accountable to the people whose

25:29

lives you are hurting. Sorry, I

25:31

didn't realize how passionate it was

25:34

about that until you asked me

25:36

the question and I'm like, oh,

25:39

I'm really angry. Seems reasonable. Okay,

25:41

thank you so much for your

25:43

time. Really appreciate it. Nice to

25:46

get to know you. And, um,

25:48

wishing you all the best. Yes,

25:51

this is fun. Victoria

25:56

Chamberlain produced our show today. She wants to

25:58

dedicate. to her her colon. Thanks to

26:00

Thanks to everyone who

26:02

spoke with Victoria, including

26:04

Dylan Scott, who you

26:06

can read who can.com. She

26:08

had help from from Amana

26:11

Laura Bullard, Bullard, Andrea Kristen's

26:13

and Patrick Boyd, who

26:15

I'll work here at at

26:17

Today Explained. you