What is YOUR risk of cancer? Depends where you were born: How rich and poor kids need to worry about different kinds of the disease

October 13, 2016

Children born to high-earning parents ‘have higher melanoma, breast cancer and prostate cancer risk’
Girls born in poor neighborhoods ‘have higher cervical cancer risk’
Boys born in poor neighborhoods ‘have lower prostate cancer risk’
Study by University of Utah could change how we conduct screenings

Mia De Graaf For Dailymail.com

Published:
09:00 EST, 13 October 2016

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Updated:
11:56 EST, 13 October 2016

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Your upbringing can raise and lower your risk of different cancers, a new study has found.

But it is not as simple as the difference between wealthy and poor.

Children born to high-earning parents have a higher risk of developing melanoma, prostate cancer or breast cancer in later life, according to the University of Utah study.

On the other hand, they found girls born in poor neighborhoods have a greater risk of invasive cervical cancer.

Boys from poor communities were found to have a lower risk of later developing prostate cancer, and anyone born in a poor area has a lower risk of melanoma.

Your upbringing can raise and lower your risk of different cancers, a new study has found

There is a caveat: the figures could also reflect that those in poorer neighborhoods participated in fewer screenings for different cancers.

However, senior author Dr Ken Smith insisted the data was vast enough, and the numbers so significantly different, that their study does identify a link between upbringing and cancer risk.

Dr Smith, a population health researcher at Huntsman Cancer Institute, the findings could shape the way we approach testing and treatment.

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‘This study shows that early-life socioeconomic status, based on factors such as parental occupation at birth, may be associated with cancer risk in adulthood,’ he said.

‘Using this information, we may be able to identify individuals who are at higher risk for cancer due to socioeconomic status at birth, and ideally, work to find strategies to help them manage their cancer risk in adulthood.’

Researchers analyzed cancer risk and socioeconomic status of baby boomers (those born between 1945 and 1959) in two Utah counties, Salt Lake and Weber.

They used the Utah Population Database (UPDB), a unique database including genealogies, birth and death certificates, hospital records, and driver’s license data.

All of the individuals analyzed had lived in Utah until at least age 18.

Dr Smith noted that the importance of critical periods in a child’s development may be affected by exposures and living conditions that can lay the foundation for later cancer risk and contribute to social differences in cancer risk.

The results of this study were published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, and Prevention on September 21, 2016.