00:00You straight away think, why me? What have I done?
00:07I don't smoke, I don't drink, I wasn't obese.
00:10Fiona So was diagnosed with liver cancer when she was 40.
00:14It's one of the fastest rising cancers in younger Australians.
00:18Some of the young people we see who are slim, who don't drink alcohol,
00:22who don't have underlying liver disease,
00:24we're still scratching our head why.
00:26Since the year 2000, the data show remarkable increases in 30 to 39 year olds,
00:31ranging from 4% in breast cancer, right up to 500% in prostate cancer.
00:38Some, such as prostate cancer, might be explained by changes in the way they're diagnosed,
00:43but others can't be explained this way.
00:47Cancer has traditionally been a disease of ageing, but over the last 20 years
00:52there's been a real increase in the number of younger adults developing these cancers.
00:59All cancers are caused by genes.
01:02Some are inherited, but others are altered by toxins or toxic influences from the world around us.
01:10And that seems to be what's happening with this rise in early onset cancers.
01:15Research is finding that exposure, probably early in life, to a toxin from a bowel bug called E. coli,
01:23could be driving some of the DNA mutations that Associate Professor Dan Buchanan is seeing in bowel cancers.
01:30The story for that particular gut bacteria has gone well beyond an association into causation.
01:36Then there are assaults on our genes from exposure to chemicals and plastics.
01:41We're exposed to a broad universe of synthetic chemicals that our biology isn't familiar with.
01:50But whatever the cause is, people like Fiona still have to deal with their daily reality.
01:55I get infusions fortnightly at the hospital.
01:59It's keeping the cancer at bay, but it's not a cure.
02:03It's perfect.
02:04You don't know what's going on with it.
02:06The Prayasurer Anupuler
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