Why Are We Still Dying from Cancer In 2025? A New Perspective

Here we are in 2025, and there is still no single medical cure for all cancers, though some can be cured.

It’s hard to understand why people die from cancer despite all the advances in medical technology and science.

The truth is that science has made tremendous strides towards understanding, identifying, and treating cancer in the last 5-10 years. Some game-changing and groundbreaking discoveries have forever altered the medical landscape and armed doctors with powerful tools to aid them in the fight to cure cancer.

Still, there is a long way to go and a great deal more to decipher in order to fully “crack the code” and fully solve the cancer problem.

In this post, we’re going to take a look at the state of cancer in 2025. We’ll examine the latest mortality trends, which cancers are causing the most problems, and, most importantly, why.

We’ll look at how traditional treatments may or may not be causing the desired changes, what’s flawed with the conventional model, and what needs to change—both internally and externally—in order for us to have a fighting chance against cancer.

We’ll also dive into some of the latest advancements in cancer research and treatment, and look at where the future might take us. We’ll examine a few changes that need to be made in order to adjust our focus on not just eliminating cancer, but also preventing it.

By the end of this post, you’ll have a much clearer picture of the landscape of cancer treatments—and with it, hope for a better, healthier future.

What Do the Latest Cancer Mortality Trends Reveal in 2025?

According to the American Cancer Society [2], “2,041,910 new cancer cases and 618,120 cancer deaths are projected to occur in the United States.” The National Institute of Health (NIH) projects that there are 2.04M new cases and 618,000 cancer deaths in 2025.

Cancer has also risen to become “the second leading cause of death in the United States overall and the leading cause among people younger than 65.”

However, there is some good news amid the bad: cancer mortality rates have decreased across the board. However, not for every cancer. This is attributed to a number of factors, including “smoking reductions, earlier detection for some cancers, and improved treatment.”

As thedata published in a 2025 statistics paper showed, “Overall cancer incidence has generally declined in men but has risen in women. Rates in women aged 50–64 years have already surpassed those in men, and younger women (younger than 50 years) have an 82% higher incidence rate than their male counterparts, up from 51% in 2002.”

Which Types of Cancer Are Still the Deadliest, and Why?

The leading causes of cancer deaths are:

• Lung cancer, expected to account for more than 125,000 deaths in 2025.
• Colorectal cancer, expected to account for nearly 53,000 deaths in 2025.
• Pancreatic cancer, expected to account for nearly 52,000 deaths in 2025.
• Female breast cancer, expected to account for more than 43,000 deaths in 2025.

Put together, that’s more than 260,000 people projected to die in 2025 alone due to these four cancers. Add in other cancers with high mortality rates—leukemia, kidney, liver, and lymphoma, to name just a few—and you can see why cancer is one of the greatest threats to our health and our very existence.

But why is it that with all the modern tools we have available, these cancers are still so deadly?

There are a number of reasons that might explain the high mortality rates caused by these cancers:

• Late stage diagnosis. In some forms of cancer, symptoms only present in the later stages, typically Stage III or Stage IV. At this stage, the cancer has often metastasized to other parts of the body, and the damage is too widespread to fully treat or counteract.
• Lack of screening. This is one of the primary causes of late diagnoses. Though there are many systems in place to provide medical tests and screenings for cancer, a large percentage of the population don’t take advantage of it or don’t prioritize it. Some people go years without medical exams, and thus issues that could be addressed early on go undetected until it’s too late.
• Aggressive biology. Some tumors (for example, pancreatic tumors) tend to be more aggressive and spread rapidly. Paired with late detection and diagnosis, they are harder to treat and even chemotherapy and radiation therapy have only limited effectiveness. In some cases, surgery is not an option due to the location of the tumor or rapid tumor progression.
• Therapy resistance. Many modern cancers have developed a natural resistance to drugs and chemotherapies, making them increasingly more difficult to treat.

All of these factors combined provide an explanation as to why, even with modern medications, surgeries, and treatments, cancer mortality rates remain high, yet overall, declining.

Why Have Traditional Treatments Failed to Lower Long-Term Mortality?

A2018 study asked this very question, and the answers it offered were fascinating.

In some cases, “increasing the dose of a particular treatment is often not successful enough to justify the accompanying increase in toxicity and reduction in quality of life.”

Cancer medications can bombard the tumor and kill it off, but kill healthy tissue or seriously impair the patient’s health in the process. Many patients—and doctors—prefer less aggressive approaches, which can sometimes lead to less effective treatment of certain cancers (particularly cancers that have developed chemotherapy resistance).

Surgical approaches have often changed. According to the 2018 paper, “Historically, surgery was the first treatment for cancer and was increasingly radical, especially after the availability of anaesthesia, but unfortunately this had little or no impact on local or distal spread.”

This provides insight into one of the most common issues doctors encounter when treating cancer: cancer metastasis.

Often, it’s not the initial cancer that ends up killing a patient, but tumor cells that have spread around the body and agglomerated elsewhere.

And radiation, while effective at combatting localized tumors, may not be able to address wider-spread issues. “Most tumour cells divide faster than normal cells,” the paper states, “and while radiotherapy can successfully treat local lesions it has no effect on metastatic disease outside the treatment area.”

The health issues caused by more aggressive treatments can also be an additional problem. “Radiation given at high doses can cause ulceration, bone necrosis and marrow failure, limiting its capacity for delivering high cure rates.” However, with the evolution of safety protocols, these complications are more rare.

While more treatments are being developed to target cancerous cells specifically and preserve otherwise healthy tissue, many are still in their infancy.

As the paper sums up, “Increasing the dose of radiotherapy and chemotherapy does not necessarily increase the effectiveness, although the toxicity is certainly enhanced to unacceptable levels, requiring extensive supportive treatments. The dramatic impact of chemotherapy on leukaemia, lymphomas and some rare tumours, such as testicular cancer, have not translated readily to the more common solid tumours, many of which occur in older populations who are particularly sensitive to the toxic side effects of many commonly used drugs.”

How Does the Conventional Model Focus on Elimination but Not Prevention?

A significant problem we face is that conventional medicine treats cancer with methods focused on removing and killing the problem (e.g., surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation). The sad truth, according to the National Institute of Health (NIH), is that less research funding is provided for prevention. Therefore, comparatively less emphasis is placed on preventing recurrence or reducing mortality rates 5 years past treatment.

Many cancers develop resistance to treatments and therapies, meaning if or when they recur, they may be harder—or even impossible—to eradicate.

Furthermore, cancer treatments often target the somatic cells that comprise the bulk of the tumors, but fail to address the stem cells responsible for the multiplication and spread of cancer in the first place. Some research that needs further development suggests that these cancer stem cells may regenerate tumors and lead to cancer recurrence.

The Problem Often Starts Outside the Body

Big money in healthcare is made by treating sick people, not keeping people healthy. Even doctors’ training reflects this.

You’ve probably heard that in four years at Medical School, doctors spend fewer than 50 hours learning about nutrition[1]. But what you may not have heard is how medical students are subjected to a barrage of pharmaceutical advertising while they are training.

Medical students have historically been offered gifts such as free meals, textbooks, pocket texts, and even drug samples from pharmaceutical companies. These are practices many schools now restrict or band. Exposure to marketing and the industry can influence attitudes and that is why schools now limit these interactions.

When health “care” is driven by profit, there isn’t a lot of care happening.

Put all of this together, and you can see why cancer continues to be a significant problem, even with all the advancements in medicines, therapies, and treatments.

The Future of Cancer Treatments: Detection and Prevention, Too

The good news is that with every passing year, thanks to clinical trials and ongoing study of cancer biology, doctors gain a greater understanding of cancer. Cancer epidemiology research provides us with ever-greater insights into cancer’s effects on the body and, most crucial of all, what can be done to stop it from killing us.

Healthcare professionals are coming to realize that cancer treatments are just one step in the process. In order to fully defeat cancer, we must emphasize detection and prevention as well as elimination.

Can We Change the Internal Environment Where Cancer Grows?

One of the most powerful tools we have in our arsenal is our own body.

The human body is a truly marvelous thing, one we have a great deal of control over. One2022 study on cancer pointed out, “The body climate itself can either prevent, promote or support cancer initiation and progression (top-down effect; i.e., body climate-induced effects on cancer), as well as be perturbed by cancer (bottom-up effect; i.e., cancer-induced body climate changes) to further favor cancer progression and spread.”

The paper explained that a number of body climate factors created either a positive or negative environment for cancer.

These factors, which need further studies, include:

• Body weight;
• The location of fat deposits (primarily around the abdomen);
• Muscle mass;
• Bone health and osteocalcin secretion;
• Gut microbiota;
• Inflammation;
• Blood, lymph, and interstitial fluid composition;
• Macronutrients consumed in your diet;
• Hormone levels;
• Oxygen levels;
• Micronutrients consumed in your diet;
• Blood pressure;
• Body temperature;
• pH levels;
• Biorhythm;
• Basal metabolic rates.

Key modifiable factors can either elevate your risk of cancer, or create an environment less hospitable to the formation of tumor cells.

What Role Does Nutrition Play in Preventing and Managing Cancer?

As you saw above, the absorption of micronutrients and macronutrients is directly linked to your internal environment. Eating enough of certain minerals—for example, zinc or calcium—can improve the health of your immune system, gut microbiota, bones, or cardiovascular system, thereby creating a less hospitable environment.

A healthy caloric intake and eating healthier foods can improve inflammation, promote a healthy weight, and so much more.

How Can Fasting and Sugar Elimination Support Cancer Therapies?

A2022 review provided fascinating insights into how fasting affects cancer.

Please note much more research is needed and these help explain the ways fasting helped combat cancer, including:

• Sensitizing tumors to make them less likely to become treatment resistant and more sensitive to chemotherapy and cancer drugs.
• Improving the health of gut bacteria, which in emerging research shows promise for positively influencing responses to cancer treatments.
• Creating a nutrient-deficient environment that stresses tumor cells with the hopes that it leads to cellular death.
• Restoring cells and clearing out cellular junk by triggering autophagy, with additional studies needed to see if this leads to healthy cell regeneration and less spread of cancerous cells.
• Lowering insulin levels and increasing glucagon levels. Whether this improves cancer outcomes is needing to be studied.

Effects by intermittent fasting (12-18 hours per day) or longer-term fasting (24 to 72 hours at a time) vary by the regimen.

As for sugar effects on the body, that’s an easy connection!

As a2022 paper on sugar and cancer hypothesized, “excess sugar consumption can lead to development of cancer and progression of disease for those with cancer independent of the association between sugar and obesity.”

However, research has yet to prove a direct causal link. Sugar indirectly increases risk via the impacts to our weight, metabolism, and more.

While cutting sugar out won’t necessarily deprive your cancer of fuel (it still has plenty of nutrients and calories available from the rest of your food), it does help overall metabolic health and can help eliminate one of the foods that creates a potentially more hospitable environment for cancer cells. The fact that it aids in weight loss and combats obesity is an added cancer-fighting bonus.

What Are the Latest Advancements in Immunotherapy?

More and more treatments are being created that harness the power of our own immune systems to fight cancer. These cancer immunotherapies are proving to help transform care, though not everyone responds well. More research is needed.

A couple of recent advancements include:

• In aMarch 2025 paper, using “a specific protein inhibitor to reprogram tumor-associated macrophages–white blood cells that are hijacked by cancer to suppress the killing of cancer cells instead of performing their usual role in working with T cells to fight disease.”
• In aDecember 2024 study, building “a glioblastoma-targeting ‘trispecific’ antibody deployed against a laboratory model of glioblastoma.”
• InJuly 2025, the FDA approved multiple immune checkpoint inhibitors to be used in the weeks leading up to surgery, or in combination with radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
• In anApril 2025 study, patients received an immune-based treatment that led to a 92% success rate in tumor shrinkage and no recurring presence of cancer cells for up to two years.

While far more remains to be researched, the fact that scientists are finding ways to harness the human immune system to aid in the fight against cancer is an excellent first step—and one that could lead to massive strides of progress in the years to come.

Why Might We Benefit from Treating Cancer as a Metabolic Disease?

Treating cancer as a metabolic disease shifts the focus to the way that it produces and consumes the energy it needs to spread.

Asone paper from back in 2013 explained, “The genomic instability observed in tumor cells and all other recognized hallmarks of cancer are considered downstream epiphenomena of the initial disturbance of cellular energy metabolism. The disturbances in tumor cell energy metabolism can be linked to abnormalities in the structure and function of the mitochondria. When viewed as a mitochondrial metabolic disease…cancer growth and progression can be managed following a whole body transition from fermentable metabolites, primarily glucose and glutamine, to respiratory metabolites, primarily ketone bodies.”

It is important to note that these strategies remain unproven however, it provides for yet another area we need research in that could impact the way we treat and hopefully respond to cancer.

What Does Integrative and Natural Oncology Offer That Conventional Medicine Misses?

The crucial difference between conventional medicine and integrative and natural oncology is the focus on the body as a whole, rather than just zeroing in on the cancer cells.

Holistic treatments emphasize not only the management of symptoms, but also reducing stress and improving the overall wellbeing of the patient. This creates an environment that is conducive to healing, supporting quality of life.

Wrapping Up: What Needs to Change in Cancer Research and Healthcare Systems Going Forward?

The focus in cancer research and healthcare systems should be not only on targeting cancer cells for elimination, but seeking to understand the mechanisms by which they originate and finding ways to prevent their incidence in the first place.

Prevention and screening need to be major goals; treatment and eradication are vital and to get ahead of the disease, we need to help fund early detection and better establish prevention methods..

Most would benefit from an increase of cancer awareness and encouraging the world’s population to avail themselves of whatever cancer screening is available to them. Early detection can be the difference between cancer being fatal or survivable.

Greater integration of available technologies will also facilitate more effective treatment of existing cancers, as well as lead to the discovery or creation of new, targeted cancer innovations that can address health concerns with greater effectiveness.

Put all of this together—a more whole-body holistic approach, a focus on prevention, more use of health technology, and greater emphasis on screening—and we as a society have a fighting shot at raising cancer survival rates and winning the battle against cancer!

In the face of such a complex and persistent health challenge, it’s clear that supporting our bodies from the inside out is just as important as medical treatment. By strengthening cellular health, improving resilience, and fostering healthy regeneration, we can create an internal environment that’s less hospitable to disease and more supportive of long-term vitality.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is stage 4 cancer 100% death?

Stage 4 cancer is not a 100% guaranteed death sentence. It’s typically linked to poorer prognosis and higher mortality rates, but people with Stage 4 cancer can still live for years after diagnosis provided they have sufficient management and treatment.

Which is one of the most aggressive cancers?

Pancreatic cancer is among the most lethal and aggressive cancers. It can cause painful symptoms like stomach pain, bleeding, blocked bile ducts, and fluid build-up in your abdomen. Surgery eligibility for pancreatic cancer only has an approval rate of 10-20%.

What is the root cause of cancer?

The root cause of cancer is genetic mutations that cause otherwise healthy cells to proliferate at an unhealthy and abnormal rate. These cell mutations may be inherited, caused by unexplained errors in DNA replication, or may be triggered by environmental exposures to carcinogens—such as cigarette smoke, chemicals, pollutants, and solar UV radiation.

Sources

How can cancer kill you?

Roadmap: Why do patients with cancer die?

How Does Cancer Actually Kill You?

Cancer

Causes of death among people living with metastatic cancer

Cancer: How does it kill?

The underexplored links between cancer and the internal body climate: Implications for cancer prevention and treatment

Effect of fasting on cancer: A narrative review of scientific evidence