There is an emerging link between COVID-19 and long-term DNA damage. They noted this group was under-vaccinated so were possibly more likely to have contracted the virus, and also more than once.

But this story could be about more recent environmental pathogens like micro-plastics that trigger inflammation and auto-immune responses that progress into disease and/or cancer. Cancer rates in that generation is markedly higher than for previous generations at that age, and not just a case of better detection but hospital admissions and death.