Health
4 troubling cancer trends you must know about in 2025
The American Cancer Society’s annual cancer trends report revealed a mix of news and statistics for 2025.
Cancer death rates have dropped 34% between 1991 and 2022, which the ACS attributes to early detection, smoking reduction and improvements in treatment.
While these numbers are encouraging, oncologists and cancer specialists still have concerns about some other factors.
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While the report shows continued progress on many fronts, certain areas remain of “significant concern,” Dr. Joshua Strauss, an attending hematologist and medical oncologist at Advanced Care Oncology and Hematology Associates of the Atlantic Medical Group in Morristown, New Jersey, shared with Fox News Digital.
Oncologists share which cancer trends most concern them for 2025. (iStock)
Below are some of the most concerning trends, according to experts.
1. Cancer deaths not improving in younger individuals
Cancer prevalence in younger individuals and adolescents has continued to rise, according to the report, with rates in teens slowly increasing by 0.7% each year.
Cancer is the leading disease-related cause of death among children and adolescents — most commonly leukemia, brain cancer and lymphoma.
In 2025, the ACS estimates that 9,550 kids up to 14 years old and 5,140 adolescents aged 15 to 19 will be diagnosed with cancer, and that 1,050 children and 600 adolescents will die.
Cancer is the leading disease-related cause of death among children and adolescents, according to ACS. (iStock)
Dr. Paul Oberstein, a gastrointestinal medical oncologist and section chief of GI Medical Oncology at NYU Langone Perlmutter Cancer Center, reiterated that people below age 50 are seeing higher rates of cancer deaths.
“It’s shown in multiple cancers,” he told Fox News Digital. “I would say the biggest finding is in young women with breast cancer.”
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The prevalence of GI (gastrointestinal) cancers is also increasing among younger adults, including pancreatic and colon cancer.
Experts have varying hypotheses on why young people are being diagnosed more often, including diet, exposure to microplastics or other environmental triggers, according to Oberstein.
One medical oncologist pushed for more research across patients and institutions to “figure out what’s going on.” (iStock)
“We don’t have a good explanation, and we need to invest in discovering why this might be the case so that we can change it,” he said.
2. Cervical cancer continues to pose unnecessary threat
Cervical cancer is one of the few cancers that can be prevented, yet thousands of women are still at risk.
While cervical cancer incidence rates decreased by more than half from the mid-1970s to the mid-2000s due to screening uptake, these numbers have since stabilized, according to the report.
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A projected 13,000 women will be diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2025 and 4,000 will die, according to Dr. Jessica Shepherd, a board-certified obstetrician gynecologist in Dallas, Texas.
Cervical cancer risk and rates of mortality correlate to connectivity with a healthcare provider, one expert said. (iStock)
“Cervical cancer in women from 30 to 44 is increasing,” she told Fox News Digital. “But also, this is a cancer that has the potential to be eradicated, if not eliminated, because of us knowing the understanding of HPV and its prevalence in the disease.”
HPV (human papillomavirus infection), the most common cause of cervical cancer, can be detected through testing.
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“We have innovation and technology that should be decreasing certain cervical cancer rates,” Shepherd said.
3. Some communities lack healthcare access
The ACS report found that Native Americans and Black people continue to die at higher rates than White people for several different cancers.
Among cervical cancer patients, the death rate in Black women and Native American women is 50% and 70% higher than in white women.
The five-year relative survival rate for cervical cancer in Black women is 58% compared to 67% of White women, the report found.
Black women are 50% more likely to die from cervical cancer than White women, the report found. (iStock)
This discrepancy in mortality rate is most likely due to lack of access to doctors and regular screenings, added Shepherd, who pushed for more research, awareness and public education.
“Cervical cancer is preventable through screening with the Pap plus HPV and co-testing,” she said. “If we had the ability to have more potential early detection, then we could see abnormalities in cells … before it actually gets to cancer and could take the time to address it.”
4. GI cancer diagnoses are worsening
Gastrointestinal (GI) cancers, such as pancreatic, liver, colorectal and stomach cancers, are all considered highly deadly.
The ACS report noted that colorectal diagnoses in men and women under the age of 65 have continued to increase.
Between 2012 and 2021, colorectal cancer incidence rates increased by 2.4% each year in people younger than 50 and by 0.4% per year in adults 50 to 64.
Colorectal cancer diagnoses in men and women under the age of 65 have continued to increase, according to ACS. (iStock)
Progress against pancreatic cancer is also trailing other cancers, according to the report, as incidence and mortality rates increase by 1% each year in men and women.
The ACS noted that in 2025, an estimated 67,440 new cases of pancreatic cancer will be diagnosed in the U.S. and 51,980 people will die from it.
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The death rate for pancreatic cancer has increased by 0.2% to 0.3% each year in men and women, and the five-year relative survival rate is 13%, which Strauss described as “dismal.”
Oberstein, a GI specialist, noted that these types of cancers “often have very poor outcomes,” although there have been some improvements in early detection and treatment over the last few decades.
Gastrointestinal cancers “often have very poor outcomes,” one oncologist cautioned. (iStock)
“The biggest benefit we’ve seen in terms of mortality comes from earlier detection of GI cancers,” he told Fox News Digital, adding that colon cancer has the best outcomes when detected early.
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“But we really need to double down on trying to detect stomach cancer, liver cancer and especially pancreatic cancer earlier in order to make a big difference,” Oberstein said.
Fox News Digital’s Melissa Rudy contributed to this report.
Health
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Health
Study reveals why chewing gum might actually help with focus and stress relief
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Humans have been chewing gum for thousands of years, long after the flavor fades and without any clear nutritional benefit.
The habit dates back at least 8,000 years to Scandinavia, where people chewed birchbark pitch to soften it into a glue for tools. Other ancient cultures, including the Greeks, Native Americans and the Maya, also chewed tree resins for pleasure or soothing effects, National Geographic recently reported.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, William Wrigley Jr. transformed chewing gum from a novelty into a mass consumer habit through relentless and innovative marketing. His brands, including Juicy Fruit and Spearmint, promoted gum as a way to calm nerves, curb hunger and stay focused.
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“Are you worried? Chew gum,” an article from 1916 said, according to Kerry Segrave’s book, “Chewing Gum in America, 1850-1920: The Rise of an Industry.” “Do you lie awake at night? Chew gum,” it continued. “Are you depressed? Is the world against you? Chew gum.”
Advertisements have long framed chewing gum as a tool for stress relief and mental sharpness. (Keystone View Company/FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images)
In the 1940s, a study found chewing resulted in lower tension but couldn’t say why.
“The gum-chewer relaxes and gets more work done,” The New York Times wrote at the time about the study’s results.
Gum became an early form of wellness, and companies are trying to revive that idea today as gum sales decline, according to National Geographic.
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But only now are scientists finally beginning to understand the biology behind those long-standing beliefs.
Chewing gum may briefly affect attention and stress-related brain activity, according to studies. (iStock)
A 2025 review by researchers at the University of Szczecin in Poland analyzed more than three decades of brain-imaging studies to examine what happens inside the brain when people chew gum. Using MRI, EEG and near-infrared spectroscopy research, the authors found that chewing alters brain activity in regions tied to movement, attention and stress regulation.
The findings help clarify why the seemingly pointless task can feel calming or focusing, even once the flavor has faded.
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Chewing gum activated not only the brain’s motor and sensory networks involved in chewing, but also higher-order regions linked to attention, alertness and emotional control, the review found. EEG studies found brief shifts in brain-wave patterns linked to heightened alertness and what researchers call “relaxed concentration.”
Humans have chewed gum for pleasure for thousands of years, according to reports. (iStock)
“If you’re doing a fairly boring task for a long time, chewing seems to be able to help with concentration,” Crystal Haskell-Ramsay, a professor of biological psychology at Northumbria University, told National Geographic.
The review also supports earlier findings that gum chewing can ease stress, but only in certain situations. In laboratory experiments, people who chewed gum during mildly stressful tasks such as public speaking or mental math often reported lower anxiety levels than those who didn’t.
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Chewing gum did not, however, consistently reduce anxiety in high-stress medical situations, such as immediately before surgery, and it offered no clear benefit when participants faced unsolvable problems designed to induce frustration.
Some studies suggest chewing gum can reduce stress in mild situations but not extreme ones. (iStock)
Across multiple studies, people who chewed gum did not remember lists of words or stories better than those who didn’t, the researchers also found, and any boost in attention faded soon after chewing stopped.
Gum may simply feed the desire to fidget, experts suspect.
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“Although these effects are often short-lived, the range of outcomes … underscores chewing gum’s capacity to modulate brain function beyond simple oral motor control,” the researchers wrote.
“However, at this time, the neural changes associated with gum chewing cannot be directly linked to the positive behavioral and functional outcomes observed in studies,” they added.
A 2025 review analyzed decades of MRI, EEG and near-infrared spectroscopy studies on gum chewing. (iStock)
Future research should address longer-term impacts, isolate flavor or stress variables and explore potential therapeutic applications, the scientists said.
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The findings also come with caveats beyond brain science. Although sugar-free gum may help reduce cavities, Fox News Digital has previously reported that dentists warn acids, sweeteners and excessive chewing may harm teeth or trigger other side effects.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the study’s authors for comment.
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