Why are more young people getting bowel cancer?
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 18 February 2026
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
James Van Der Beek’s death last week at just 48 shocked fans, reignited fears about a disease we still associate with old age. Cases of bowel cancer are rising in those under 50, even as rates fall among the elderly. To find out why, researchers are turning to a century of preserved samples.
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Guest:
- Ben Spencer, science editor, The Sunday Times
- Professor Trevor Graham, director, Centre for Evolution and Cancer
- Holly Masters, cancer patient
Host: Manveen Rana
Producer: Julia Webster, Sophie McNulty
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Read more: Bowel cancer has doubled in under-50s: do the reasons lie in birth?
Further listening: Why are more young people getting cancer?
Photo: Getty.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From the Times and the Sunday Times, this is the story. I'm Manvine Rana. |
| 0:10.6 | Going back to about summer of 2020, I think I first noticed some symptoms. And at that point, |
| 0:17.9 | I called up the GP and was told that I probably had piles. |
| 0:24.0 | Holly Masters is 28. |
| 0:26.4 | She lives in London and she's an actor. |
| 0:29.2 | Six years ago, she went to the doctor for what seemed like a relatively innocuous condition, until it wasn't. |
| 0:36.9 | Being 22 at the time, no one would have thought it was |
| 0:39.9 | bowel cancer. It took a fateful trip to A&E a year later before Holly was properly diagnosed. |
| 0:48.2 | I remember being in the hospital and having to ring up my now-fiancee and tell him that they think I have cancer was probably |
| 0:57.9 | one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. Holly's life changed in an instant. She was told |
| 1:05.1 | she had stage three cancer and was plunged into cycles of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, having to stop working and seeing friends to avoid any risk of infection, all in her early 20s. |
| 1:19.3 | That's a time where you should be out having fun, figuring out who you are. Maybe you're going to university or you're starting your career and then cancer comes along |
| 1:28.7 | and knocks you sideways and changes your life. |
| 1:33.9 | Thankfully, Holly is now in remission, but her case isn't as much of an anomaly as you'd think. |
| 1:41.0 | Boul cancer in young people has doubled since the early 1990s, while it seems to be going down in older people. |
| 1:49.0 | So what's going on? With scientists in a race to find a solution, why do they think young people are more vulnerable now. The story today, unraveling a medical mystery. Why are more young people getting |
| 2:13.7 | bowel cancer. |
| 2:28.2 | There's been a lot of, you know, high-profile bowel cancer deaths in recent years. |
| 2:33.5 | Ben Spencer, science editor of the Sunday Times, has been digging into one of cancer research's most worrying |
| 2:35.3 | and perplexing trends. |
| 2:38.2 | Just recently, James van der Beek died at a very young age, 48 with six children. |
| 2:46.9 | Everyone remembers him as Dawson from Dawson's Creek, this young teenager on the brink of adulthood. |
... |
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