October 26, 2026

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Doctors are seeing a concerning trend: Cancer is becoming more common among young adults. Early-onset cancers (EOCs) — cancers diagnosed before age 50 or 55, including colorectal cancer, uterine cancer and multiple myeloma — are increasing in incidence. At the same time, research suggests that younger generations may be biologically aging faster than earlier generations. Scientists are now exploring whether these two trends could be connected.

Chronological age is the number of years a person has lived, while biological age reflects how well the body is functioning compared with what might be expected at that chronological age. Biological aging can reflect the buildup of genetic damage, environmental exposures, lifestyle and other factors over time. Researchers can estimate biological age using different measures, including information from blood tests.

A collaborative research group led by Yin Cao, Sc.D., M.P.H., professor of surgery and medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, is exploring whether biological aging could contribute to the rise in EOCs. For this proof-of-concept study, Cao and her team analyzed longitudinal patient data — information gathered over time — from NIH’s All of Us Research Program and the UK Biobank. The researchers examined whole-body biological aging in more than 160,000 participants across the two data sets and also explored organ-specific aging in a subset of UK Biobank participants. The team — funded in part by the NCATS Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program — published their findings in Nature Medicine.

The researchers found evidence that whole-body biological aging has accelerated across generations. In the UK Biobank, participants born between 1965 and 1974 showed greater biological aging than those born between 1950 and 1954. A similar generational pattern emerged in the All of Us data, where participants born between 1990 and 1999 showed greater biological aging than those born between 1965 and 1969. Faster biological aging also was associated with an increased risk of certain early-onset cancers, particularly lung, gastrointestinal and uterine cancers.

The researchers also found that biological aging in specific organs and tissues may be associated with particular cancers. Accelerated immune-system aging was linked to a higher risk of early-onset lung cancer, while accelerated aging of fat tissue was linked to a higher risk of early-onset colorectal cancer.

Looking at both whole-body and organ-specific aging could provide a more complete picture of a person’s potential cancer risk, Cao explained. “Aging at different scales can be asynchronous, which means it’s important to look at aging from multiple levels.”

Cao emphasized that the findings need to be validated in larger populations with a broader range of demographic and clinical features. Ultimately, researchers hope that biological age could serve as a set of biomarkers to help identify individuals at higher risk of cancer earlier in life and inform more targeted screening and prevention strategies.

The research also aligns with broader NIH priorities to better understand chronic disease, identify disease risk earlier and use large-scale health data to turn scientific discoveries into approaches that can improve prevention and care. By examining biological aging as a potential marker of disease risk, the study reflects NCATS’ emphasis on using data science and real-world data to better understand disease onset and progression and identify opportunities for earlier intervention.

The study also highlights the need for large, longitudinal data sets that include younger populations. Cao noted that much of the available aging data comes from older adults, making data from younger people particularly important for understanding what may be driving biological aging and rising rates of EOCs. “We hope this resource building continues to be a priority nationally,” she stated.

Michael Kurilla, M.D., Ph.D., director of NCATS’ Division of Clinical Innovation, which administers the CTSA Program, stated, “Understanding biological aging is critically important because health, particularly optimal health, is more than simply the absence of disease.”