A new study found cellular differences between colon cancer tumors in younger and older patients. Sheila Alonso/Getty Images

People under 50 aren't only at a higher risk of colon cancer today than they were a few decades ago. They're also developing a different, sometimes more aggressive form of it compared to older patients, scientists say.

A new study published in Nature Medicine analyzed 189 tumors from colorectal cancer patients aged 29 to over 90, including measurements of gene activity in more than 850,000 cancer cells.

The goal was to look at how tumors varied "across the entire spectrum of age," Dr. Ana Anderson, a co-senior author of the study who leads the cancer immunology program at the Gene Lay Institute at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, told Business Insider.…