Mind & Body · Saturday, 26 September 2026

01 Briefing what happened

Bowel cancer in people under 50 has risen about 2% a year since the 1990s, and excess weight explains only 20 of every 100 extra cases

Colorectal cancer is now the leading cause of cancer death among Americans under 50. Smoking, drinking and diet all improved while the cases climbed, so researchers are now looking at gut bacteria and at what happens in childhood.

2% a year

rise in colorectal cancer among Americans under 50 since the 1990s

deaths from every other leading cancer in that age group fell over the same years [1]

20 of 100

extra bowel cancers in young people in England explained by excess weight

the other 80 have no explanation the researchers could find [3]

70,201

colorectal cancers in 15-to-39-year-olds worldwide in 2021, up from 41,384 in 1990

deaths in that age group fell over the same years, and East Asia has the highest rate [6]

1.9 million

new colorectal cancers worldwide in 2022, at every age

more than 900,000 people died of it that year, the second-biggest cancer killer [10]

The lead story — what happened

Colorectal cancer became the leading cause of cancer death among Americans under 50 in 2023, up from fifth place in 1990, the American Cancer Society reported in January. [1]
Cases in under-50s have climbed about 2% a year since the 1990s, and 60% to 70% are found at an advanced stage. [1]
In March the society said cases in 20-to-49-year-olds are rising 3% a year, and that 45% of this year's diagnoses will be in people under 65, up from 27% in 1995. [2]
In England, 11 cancers are rising in people in their 20s, 30s and 40s, while smoking, drinking, exercise, red meat and fibre all got better or stayed flat over the same years. [3]
The only trend that matched the rise was excess weight, and it explains about 20 of every 100 extra bowel cancers; the other 80 are unexplained. [3]
Across three European cohorts with 1,369 early cases, higher body weight raised men's risk by a third per 5 BMI points, smoking by a quarter and alcohol by 15%, while exercise cut it by 29%. [5]
Rates have risen with each generation born since the 1960s, which points to something in daily life that changed around then. [5]
Up to a fifth of patients carry an inherited fault such as Lynch syndrome; about 80% of cases have no genetic explanation. [4]
Doctors now suspect the gut's bacteria; one study linked colibactin, a DNA-damaging toxin made by some E. coli, to colon cancer in younger patients. [4]
A polyp normally takes about ten years to become a cancer, so a 22-year-old's tumour would have started at about age 10. [1][7]
US screening now starts at 45 instead of 50; most countries start somewhere in the 40s or early 50s. [1][8]
People below the screening age often see several doctors before a diagnosis, and bleeding gets put down to piles. [7]

199527%

202645%

Share of US colorectal cancer diagnoses in people under 65: 27% in 1995 and an expected 45% this year.

Who is involved

The American Cancer Society

the US charity that counts the country's cancers; its January report in JAMA put colorectal cancer first among cancer deaths under 50
Andrea Cercek

a cancer doctor who runs the young-onset bowel cancer centre at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York; she says a 22-year-old's polyp must have started at age 10
The Institute of Cancer Research and Imperial College London

the two London research bodies whose analysis found 11 cancers rising in young people in England
John Marshall

head of clinical research at Georgetown University's cancer centre in the US; thirty years ago none of his bowel cancer patients were under 50, now almost half are

How it unfolded

1990 colorectal cancer is the fifth cause of cancer death in Americans under 50 [1]
1990s cases in under-50s start climbing about 2% a year [1]
A few years ago the US screening age is lowered from 50 to 45 [1]
22 Jan 2026 the American Cancer Society reports it is now the first cause of cancer death under 50 [1]
3 Mar 2026 the society says 45% of this year's cases will be in people under 65 [2]

Where this points

Watch whether the gut-bacteria and childhood-exposure studies now under way can explain the 80 extra cases in every 100 that excess weight does not. [3][4]

What is pushing on the whole day

The bar and the word are our reading of how hard each one is pushing today. The arrow is where it is heading. The evidence is in the stories below.

Guidelines moving before the cause is found Building↑

US bowel cancer screening now starts at 45, five years earlier, because the cases were there. [7] Sleep doctors demoted the old restless-legs drugs in 2025 after years of them making the illness worse. [47] The EU limited 4,000 ink chemicals in 2022 while the cancer question stayed open. [58]

Help arriving before a doctor does Building↑

In South Korea 30.3% of cardiac arrests now get CPR from a passer-by, up from 12.9% ten years ago. [36] Village volunteers in Chad and Cameroon report every Guinea worm and tether the dogs. [21] French households were treated for scabies all at once, everyone in the home. [43]

Phones stepping into care Building↑

An AI chat platform matched face-to-face group therapy in a trial of 995 students in Israel. [25] Singapore will stream a volunteer's chest compressions and a video call to the ambulance dispatcher. [40] Clinics in Congo that typed cases into an app got 46% of reports in within a day. [62]

Old treatments wearing out High→

Permethrin cream, the first choice for scabies, fails more often, and Turkish children needed a second drug. [45] Restless-legs patients on dopamine drugs saw symptoms come earlier and spread. [47] A double dose of ivermectin cured no more severe scabies than the standard dose. [44]

The rest of the day

26 more stories on this beat.

Each with its own sources. None of these is a link to the story above.

02
A vaccine built from one patient's tumour

On 19 August Merck and Moderna said their personalised melanoma vaccine, intismeran, met the main goal of a final-stage trial. [14][11] The trial enrolled more than 1,000 people whose high-risk melanoma had been cut out; all got the immune drug Keytruda and some also got the vaccine. [13][11] Those who got both went longer without the cancer returning and were slower to see it spread to other organs. [12][13] Each dose is made from the DNA of that patient's own tumour, so no two patients get the same vaccine. [12][11] It is the first mRNA cancer treatment to succeed in a late-stage trial. [19]

Why it matters — Melanoma is the deadliest skin cancer; once it spreads, five-year survival can fall to between 16% and 35%. [11] The same companies are testing the same idea in lung, bladder and kidney cancer. [13] Worldwide about 330,000 people were diagnosed with melanoma in 2022 and nearly 60,000 died of it. [18][20]
03
How a per-patient vaccine is made

Scientists take a piece of the removed tumour and sequence its DNA to find mutations that exist only in that cancer. [13][11] Software then picks the mutated proteins, called neoantigens, and writes them into an mRNA strand the immune system can learn from. [16][12] Earlier cancer vaccines aimed at proteins that healthy cells also carry, and the body's tolerance for its own proteins blunted them. [16] Of 442 melanoma vaccine trials counted up to August 2025, only 6.1% reached phase 3 and 22.9% were stopped early. [17]

Why it matters — Neoantigens skip the tolerance problem because they are not in any healthy cell. [16] Twenty years of vaccines aimed at shared tumour proteins produced few real responses in patients with advanced cancer. [16]
04
The size of the benefit is still unknown

The companies announced the result in a press release and have not published the data. [15][13] The UK coordinating doctor, Heather Shaw of UCLH, said the size of the benefit is not yet known and that full results come at the ESMO cancer congress in October. [12] Cancer Research UK said the interim data still needs to be fully reviewed. [13] The vaccine still needs approval from regulators, and in May the US regulator refused a different melanoma treatment that had promising trial results. [13][11]

Why it matters — Shares in Moderna and Merck surged on the announcement, before anyone outside the companies had seen the numbers. [13]
05
Guinea worm: ten cases left in the world

The Carter Center said at the end of January that ten people caught Guinea worm disease in 2025, in South Sudan, Chad and Ethiopia, down from 15 in 2024. [23] In 1986 about 3.5 million people a year in 21 countries were infected. [23][22] The worm is swallowed as a larva in pond water, grows for about a year, then burns its way out through the skin. [22] There is no drug and no vaccine; the fall came from cloth filters, treating ponds and keeping cases away from water. [22][21] Only smallpox has been eradicated in people before. [23]

3.5 millionCases a year in 1986
10Cases in 2025
Human cases of Guinea worm disease in 1986 and in 2025.

Why it matters — About 100 million infections are estimated to have been prevented. [23] The World Health Organization has certified 200 countries and territories free of the worm. [21]
06
The worm is hiding in dogs

Eradication has stalled on animals: 664 infected animals were reported in 2024, mostly dogs in Cameroon and Chad, and about 700 in 2025. [21][22] A dog or a person carries the worm for 10 to 14 months with no sign before it emerges. [24] Villages now tether dogs during the transmission season and pay cash rewards for reported worms. [21] Researchers testing a blood test found one antigen, DUF148, picked up 76.6% of hidden infections in Chadian dogs, but it also reacted to other worms. [24] Since 2023 the world counts as eradicated only when no worm emerges in people or animals for three years. [22]

Why it matters — Cameroon was certified worm-free in 2007 and got the worm back from Chad in 2019, so a country is only safe while its neighbours' dogs are. [21]
07
A chatbot matched group therapy in a trial

A trial in Israel randomly assigned 995 university students with psychological distress to 12 weeks of an AI conversation platform, face-to-face group therapy, or a waiting list. [25] Published in April 2026, it found the chatbot group's anxiety fell more than the group-therapy group's, by about 2 points on a 21-point scale, and depression fell more than in the waiting-list group. [25] Post-traumatic stress symptoms did not differ between the groups. [25] Students who felt a bond with the chatbot used it more and improved more. [25]

Why it matters — About one in eight people worldwide has a mental disorder and only a quarter of those who need care get it, the authors write. [25]
08
Across 39 trials, chatbots help a little

A meta-analysis in npj Digital Medicine pooled 39 randomised trials of mental-health chatbots published from 2017 to October 2025. [26] Across 7,401 people the chatbots cut depressive symptoms by a small-to-moderate amount, an effect size of 0.31, and anxiety by 0.28. [26] The effect on depression was larger in people who were clinically depressed than in healthy volunteers. [26] A separate review of 31 trials in 15-to-39-year-olds, covering 29,637 people, found similar sizes and judged the newest generative chatbots' results inconclusive. [27]

Why it matters — In Asia, eight trials with 921 people found a benefit for depression but none for anxiety or stress. [29]
09
The weak spot is people stopping

In a review of nine chatbot studies in college students, up to 61% of participants dropped out. [30] Many commercial mental-health apps keep fewer than 4% of users active after the first month, the Israeli trial's authors note. [25] Repetitive content and technical problems were the main reasons young people quit. [27] The chatbots that worked best used cognitive behavioural therapy, daily check-ins and a friendly tone. [28][30]

Why it matters — Most of these trials lasted two to eight weeks, so nobody knows whether the benefit holds. [28]
10
Bystander CPR in South Korea more than doubled

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency reported in January that 30.3% of people who had a sudden cardiac arrest outside hospital in 2024 got CPR from a bystander, up from 12.9% in 2014. [36] That is 2.3 times the rate of ten years earlier. [36] When a bystander did CPR, 14.4% of patients survived. [36] Bystander means anyone who is not an on-duty paramedic or medical professional. [36]

201412.9%
202430.3%
Share of sudden cardiac arrests in South Korea that got CPR from a bystander.

Why it matters — Survival after a cardiac arrest depends on the minutes before an ambulance arrives, and only a bystander is there for them. [37]
11
Qatar's cardiac arrest survival doubled

Qatar's national registry followed 1,238 adults whose hearts stopped outside hospital and whom paramedics tried to revive. [37] 17.8% survived to leave hospital and 13.5% did so with their brain largely intact, against 8.1% and 5.4% in the country's previous count. [37] Most arrests happened at home, 61.8% were witnessed and 42.4% got bystander CPR. [37] Being witnessed, getting a shock before hospital, and having a blocked artery opened within 24 hours each predicted survival. [37]

Previous count8.1%
This registry17.8%
Share of people in Qatar who survived to leave hospital after a cardiac arrest outside hospital.

Why it matters — Survival to discharge after cardiac arrest is 7% to 11% in most places and has barely moved in 30 to 40 years. [37]
12
CPR helped men more than women in Japan

Among 9,081 adults treated for cardiac arrest at 42 Japanese emergency centres from 2019 to 2021, 61.9% were men. [38] Bystander CPR went with higher 30-day survival in both sexes: 11.0% against 4.5% in men and 5.4% against 3.4% in women. [38] After adjustment the link stayed strong in men but was not statistically significant in women, and the difference between the sexes was itself significant. [38] The authors say the reasons need investigating. [38]

Why it matters — The authors say the difference needs explaining, and that bystander CPR should be delivered equally to both sexes in the meantime. [38]
13
Children who drown survive resuscitation more often

Germany's resuscitation registry holds 68,719 cardiac arrests from 2013 to 2023; 316 were caused by drowning, half of them in June, July and August. [39] Drowning patients were younger, median 50 against 72, and colder, with a body temperature of 31.1 degrees C against 35.8 at the scene. [39] Overall survival was no different from other arrests. [39] But children under 11 who drowned survived 44.7% of the time, against 16.3% for children whose hearts stopped for other reasons. [39]

Why it matters — Drowning is one of the five leading causes of death for 1-to-14-year-olds in Europe, and most of it is preventable. [39]
14
Singapore tests CPR with a live video link

Singapore has trained 17,800 volunteers and given them a credit-card-sized device that shows the depth and speed of their chest compressions. [40] Even with it, only 36% delivered good-quality CPR in a simulation, and many said they feared pressing hard enough to do harm. [40] A registered randomised trial will now stream the card's data and a video call to the ambulance dispatcher, who can coach the volunteer as it happens. [40] The control group gets the usual voice-only instructions. [40]

Why it matters — Good CPR raises survival 3.9 times over poor CPR, the protocol says, and over half of volunteers in one survey had ignored an alert. [40]
15
Fit men die suddenly less often

A review of cohort studies finds that four or more hours a week of moderate-to-vigorous activity, or good measured fitness, goes with a 40% to 50% lower risk of sudden cardiac death. [41] Sudden cardiac death is an unexpected death from the heart within about an hour of symptoms, and it causes 15% to 20% of all deaths worldwide. [41] In Kuopio, Finland, 1,089 men measured in the 1980s were followed for a median of 31.2 years. [42] Fitter men died of heart disease less often, and fitness divided by waist size predicted death better than either measure alone. [42]

Why it matters — No randomised trial can assign people to be unfit for decades, so the link rests on counting, and the reviewers say the causal question is still open. [41]
16
Heat lowers blood pressure by a few points

A meta-analysis of 51 studies of passive heating, in saunas and hot baths, found a single session lowered average blood pressure by about 5 mmHg. [31] Repeated sessions lowered the top number by about 5 and the bottom number by about 3. [31] Markers of inflammation and artery stiffness did not change. [31] A second meta-analysis of 20 hot-water immersion studies found one session raised the heart rate by 28 beats a minute and cut the bottom number by 5 mmHg, but called the overall benefit inconclusive. [33]

Why it matters — The reviewers say the size of the effect was much the same whether people were healthy or ill, young or old. [31]
17
A sauna works the heart like a walk

A Finnish sauna runs at 80 to 100 degrees C and pushes the heart rate to 120 to 150 beats a minute, the level of moderate exercise. [34] Blood flow to the skin can rise to 7 to 8 litres a minute. [35] A 2025 review of sauna studies in heart disease found the observational studies consistent and the randomised trials mixed, and asked for standard protocols and longer trials. [32] In 28 healthy young women, three ten-minute sauna rounds raised the top blood-pressure number in the first round and lowered it across the rounds. [35]

Why it matters — The review says the strongest case is for people who cannot exercise, and that the trials do not yet prove it. [32]
18
Scabies: the cream beat the pill in French homes

Scabies is a mite that burrows into the skin; about 207 million people have it at any time. [43] In 28 French hospitals, 289 households with a confirmed case were randomly given either ivermectin pills or permethrin cream for everyone in the home, on day 0 and day 10. [43] At day 28, 88.5% of cream households were cured against 71.8% of pill households. [43] A second French trial gave 132 adults with severe scabies a double dose of ivermectin or the standard dose, both with cream; cure was 75% and 82%, so the higher dose did no better. [44]

Ivermectin pills71.8%
Permethrin cream88.5%
Share of French households cured of scabies at day 28, by the treatment everyone in the home got.

Why it matters — Ivermectin is easier to give to a whole village, which is why mass treatment programmes use it; these trials say the cream, applied head to toe, still cures more. [43][46]
19
In Turkey, the better scabies drug cost two days' pay

Turkish doctors followed 230 children whose scabies had survived at least one course of permethrin cream. [45] Families chose, after cost counselling, between adding two doses of ivermectin or continuing the cream alone. [45] Adding the pills cut the time to halve the itch from 9.8 days to 7.2, raised the four-week cure rate from 66.0% to 83.8% and halved recurrence at three months. [45] Until March 2023 ivermectin was sold only in 20-tablet import packs costing 28% to 37% of a month's minimum wage; a generic cut that to 5% to 7%. [45]

Why it matters — The same four tablets cost under 1% of the minimum wage in Australia and under 0.3% in India, so which drug a child gets depends on where the child lives. [45]
20
Pill and cheap lotion cure scabies equally

A meta-analysis of ten randomised trials with 1,105 patients compared oral ivermectin with benzyl benzoate lotion, an old and cheap treatment. [46] Cure rates were the same at one week, at two to four weeks and after four weeks. [46] The lotion caused far more burning and stinging; ivermectin had about a quarter as many side effects. [46] Scabies was added to the WHO's list of neglected tropical diseases in 2017, and permethrin, the usual first choice, is failing more often. [46]

Why it matters — Where permethrin fails or is unaffordable, the cheap lotion works as well as the pill, at the price of stinging. [46]
21
Restless legs: the old first-line drugs demoted

Restless legs syndrome is an urge to move the legs in the evening that spoils sleep; it affects 2% to 5% of people badly enough to matter. [49] For years the first drugs given were dopamine agonists, the class used in Parkinson's disease. [47][49] In 2025 the American Academy of Sleep Medicine downgraded their long-term use because of augmentation, in which the drug makes symptoms start earlier in the day, get stronger and spread to other parts of the body. [47][63] Gabapentin-type drugs are now the mainstay, and most patients on the old drugs end up escalating doses and stopping all medication within ten years. [47][48]

Why it matters — A drug that worked at first and then made the illness worse was the standard treatment. [47]
22
Iron is the first thing to check in restless legs

Iron shortage is found in 25% to 40% of people with restless legs, and topping it up is the first-line treatment. [48] Guidelines say to give iron when ferritin, the blood's iron-store reading, is 75 micrograms per litre or below, and moderate evidence supports iron by drip. [53] A 2025 meta-analysis of 31 studies found iron by drip beat iron by mouth in kidney disease, bowel disease and cancer, but found no difference for restless legs. [50] Where iron is not the cause, treatment depends on severity and on whether another illness, such as kidney failure, is behind it. [54]

Why it matters — More than 160 genetic risk spots have been found and no single gene explains the illness. [49]
23
Restless legs in bowel disease, and untreated in Mexico

A meta-analysis found restless legs in about 15% of people with inflammatory bowel disease, against about 3% of adults in general. [51][63] Bowel disease causes iron loss and long-running inflammation, both linked to the syndrome. [51] In Latin America, a survey of 69,830 Mexican women found 15.6% had the syndrome, 54.5% of them with frequent symptoms, and only 18.1% were treated. [52] Iron testing is limited in many countries and the newer first-line drugs are hard to get, so dopamine agonists and sedatives are still widely used. [52]

Why it matters — The treatment a person gets depends on which drugs a country's pharmacies stock. [52]
24
Tattoo ink ends up in the lymph nodes

Researchers tattooed the footpads of mice with black, red and green ink and watched it drain through the lymph vessels within ten minutes. [55] Within a day it had piled up in the nearest lymph node, and after two months the node was still inflamed. [55] Human lymph-node biopsies from tattooed patients showed the same pattern of ink. [55] In the mice, ink at the injection site lowered the antibody response to an mRNA COVID vaccine and raised it to an inactivated flu vaccine. [55] This is a mouse result; nobody has tested vaccine responses in tattooed people. [55]

Why it matters — About 29% of Swedish adults have a tattoo, and most got the first one between 18 and 35, so the ink sits in the body for most of a life. [61][58]
25
Tattoos and cancer: two answers

A Swedish case-control study of people diagnosed at 20 to 60 found tattooed people had a 29% higher rate of melanoma, and it was not higher for bigger tattoos. [58] A Dutch nationwide registry found 94 melanomas on tattoos among 142,492 melanomas from 1991 to 2023 and concluded tattoos are unlikely to raise the risk. [57] For lymphoma, a meta-analysis of four studies with 17,941 people found no link, an odds ratio of 1.01. [56] An earlier Swedish study had found a link with lymphoma, and a Danish twin study a link with skin cancer. [60]

Why it matters — Neither yes nor no is settled; the studies count different things, and people get the ink young and carry it for decades. [60][58]
26
Inks still break the EU's limits

EU rules limiting 4,000 chemicals in tattoo ink took effect in January 2022. [58] A study of 41 inks sold in the EU afterwards found nickel over the limit in 24, arsenic in 20, chromium in 16 and lead in 5; mercury was absent. [59] Nickel reached a lifetime cancer risk above one in 10,000 in several products. [59] In Australia, an analysis of 15 inks found none would pass the EU rules. [60] Tattooed Swedes are more often smokers, with odds 2.86 times higher, and lower on income and education. [61]

Why it matters — Whatever the inks do, they do it more to people who already carry more health risks. [61]
27
Congo's clinics report outbreaks by phone

Kwango Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo piloted a digital case-reporting system, SORMAS, from July 2022 to December 2024. [62] Where health workers at clinics entered cases themselves, 46% of reports arrived within a day; where data went to a district office for entry, 5% did. [62] 2,950 cases of epidemic-prone diseases were logged. [62] Congo faces repeated Ebola, cholera, measles and mpox outbreaks, and most of its surveillance is still on paper. [62]

Why it matters — The pilot shows that who does the typing decides how fast a case is known. [62]

02 Lesson why it matters

The cause and the illness can be years apart

A polyp takes ten years to become a cancer, so the cause is found by counting thousands of people by birth year, not by asking one patient.

The twist

By the time a bowel cancer shows, the cause has been gone for ten years. Nobody who treats the patient can see it, so the cause has to be found by counting thousands of people by the year they were born.

The picture

A swallowed Guinea worm larva to the blister1 year

A bowel polyp to a cancer10 years

Finnish men followed for heart deaths31 years

How long each of today's stories had to wait between the cause and the sign: a year for a worm, ten for a polyp, and 31 years to count the heart deaths of 1,089 men in Kuopio.

How it works

Something gets into the body: a gut toxin in childhood, tattoo ink, a worm larva in pond water
For months or years there is no sign at all
The illness appears long after, and the doctor sees only the illness
No single patient can connect the two, so the link is found by counting thousands by birth year
The rule then changes years after the exposure began: a screening age, an ink limit, a filter

The same force, elsewhere today

Where this chain is also running, in today's other stories.

Tattoo ink sitting in the lymph nodes

the ink arrives at about 24 and stays for life, so any cancer it caused would show decades later and only in a count of thousands
The worm hiding in dogs

a dog carries the worm for 10 to 14 months with no sign, so the eradication programme now needs a blood test for the silent stage
The melanoma vaccine's unknown benefit

the trial met its goal, but how big the benefit is will only be known after patients are followed for years
Fit men in Kuopio

1,089 men were measured in the 1980s and counted for 31 years before fitness and heart deaths could be linked

Where you've seen this

Asbestos

breathed in at work, and the lung disease counted by trade decades later

Smoking

doctors saw only the cancer; the link came from following thousands of people for decades

Lead in petrol

children breathed it in, and the harm was read off birth years long after the pumps changed

Pensions

money paid in at 25 is counted at 65, so nobody feels the shortfall while it is being made

The catch

A count by birth year can show that something changed around 1960 without saying what it was, and obesity, plastics, processed food and gut bacteria all changed at once.

And the whole of it

A doctor sees one patient. A patient feels one body. The pattern shows only in a registry of millions, and almost nobody in it will ever read it.

03 Truth what's really going on

What is really going on

Bowel cancer in people under 50 has risen about 2% a year since the 1990s, and after thirty years of counting nobody can say why. Excess weight explains about 20 of every 100 extra cases in England, and the United States lowered its screening age to 45 because the cases were there, not because the cause was found. [1][3][7]

Why it works on us — The BBC opens on Bradley Coombes, who died at 23 after 18 months of symptoms; one named young man makes a rise of 2% a year feel like an epidemic, when one young person in 1,000 a year gets any cancer against one in 100 of the old. [3]

Who gains

Moderna and Merck — Their shares surged on a press release, weeks before any data is shown to other doctors. [13]
Makers of mental-health chatbots such as Woebot and Wysa — A meta-analysis of 39 trials now backs a small benefit, and the reviews call the bots cheap to scale where therapists are short. [26][28]
Makers of iron drips such as ferric carboxymaltose — Restless-legs guidelines now put iron ahead of the old dopamine drugs, though a 2025 meta-analysis found no advantage of the drip over iron tablets for the syndrome. [47][53][50]
The Turkish maker of generic ivermectin — A local generic in 10-tablet packs cut a family's cost from up to 37% of a month's minimum wage to 5% to 7%. [45]
Village volunteers in Chad and Cameroon — Cash rewards for reporting a confirmed worm, in place since 2014, pay for the surveillance that finds the last cases. [21]

Who pays

People under 45 with bowel symptoms — They do not qualify for screening, often see several doctors before a diagnosis, and 60% to 70% are found with advanced disease. [7][1]
Restless-legs patients who started dopamine drugs years ago — Augmentation makes symptoms come earlier and spread, and most escalate doses and stop all medication within ten years. [47][48]
Women whose hearts stop outside hospital — In Japan bystander CPR lifted survival less for women, 5.4% against 3.4%, than for men, 11.0% against 4.5%. [38]
Families in Turkey with a child whose scabies came back — Before March 2023 the pills came only in 20-tablet import packs costing up to 37% of a month's minimum wage. [45]
Dog owners along the Chari river in Chad and Cameroon — They tether their dogs for the transmission season, with 79% compliance in Cameroon, so the worm cannot reach the water. [21]

What nobody knows yet

Open questions from across today’s stories — ours included.

01

What is causing bowel cancer to rise in the young.

The English analysis found 80 of every 100 extra cases unexplained after weight; sweetened drinks, ultra-processed food, PFAS chemicals, antibiotics, pollution, gut bacteria and weedkillers are all suggested and none is shown. [3]
02

Whether gut bacteria are a cause or a bystander.

One study linked the E. coli toxin colibactin to colon cancer in younger patients; there is no test for a healthy microbiome and no way yet to say which factor triggers a tumour. [4]
03

Whether young people's tumours are more aggressive or just found later.

In Qatar, tumours in patients aged 45 and under were more often poorly differentiated and more often advanced, yet five-year survival was the same as in older patients. [9]
04

How much the melanoma vaccine helps.

Merck and Moderna announced that the trial met its goal without releasing the data; the size of the benefit comes in October and no peer-reviewed paper exists. [12][15]
05

Whether tattoos raise cancer risk.

A Swedish case-control study found melanoma 29% more common in tattooed people; a Dutch registry of 142,492 melanomas found no sign of it; a meta-analysis found no lymphoma link while an earlier Swedish study did. [58][57][56][60]
06

Why bystander CPR helped men more than women in Japan.

The survival gap was statistically significant and the authors offer no mechanism. [38]
07

Whether chatbot benefits last.

The Israeli trial ran 12 weeks with a three-month follow-up, and most trials in the reviews ran two to eight weeks. [25][28]
08

Whether Guinea worm can be eradicated while dogs carry it.

About 700 animal infections were found in 2025, mostly dogs in Chad and Cameroon; the blood test for the silent stage catches 76.6% and reacts to other worms too. [22][24]
09

Whether saunas prevent heart disease or just go with it.

The observational studies agree and the randomised trials are mixed, the 2025 review says. [32]

04 Hope carry this

In 1986 about 3.5 million people a year caught Guinea worm disease. In 2025 ten people did, and no drug or vaccine was ever made for it.

Also true today

Deaths from cancer among Americans under 50 fell by 44% between 1990 and 2023.
In South Korea, the share of people whose hearts stopped outside hospital and who got CPR from a passer-by rose from 12.9% in 2014 to 30.3% in 2024.
In Qatar, survival after a cardiac arrest outside hospital rose from 8.1% to 17.8% between one national count and the next.