Wasn’t the whole point that colorectal cancer rates were almost non-existent in the late 1800’s?
No, it clearly says that risk levels had increased back to the level they were at for people born in the late 1800s.
Another possibility to explain this is that diseases seem to go in cycles, regardless of what we do or don’t do. They behave like epidemics in some respects.
There is so much more that scientists don’t know than they do know that they should stop making proclamations about the best diet or lifestyle. One of my pet peeves is the idea of “clean eating”. It’s just dumb. There is no such thing, but it sounds good to people who think they are accumulating all kinds of “toxins” in their bodies.