Sunday, 4 February 2024

Today Is...World Cancer Day

When i was in school back in the 80's there was a Cancer Aware poster campaign which said every 4th person will develop some form of cancer, the number now seems to be 1 in 3 with an increase in Cancer cases in young adults.
Always considered an older persons curse, the latest Office of National Statistics figures show diagnosis has increased by 40% in the last 16 years, with 1,300 more cases of young people getting cancer each year. 
Fast food diets and lack of exercise could be responsible for a rise in these cases in young adults scientists have warned with the science adviser at Children with Cancer UK, saying there seems to be: 'a correlation between the lifestyle of young people and a significant increase in the number of teenagers being diagnosed'.
The science part is explained as: 'They tend to be doing a lot less exercise and there's also a lot of fast food being eaten, which is fine in moderation, but we know they do contain cancer giving substances. So if you eat well-cooked meat and burgers and it goes into your colon and hangs around because you're not doing much exercise, it's more likely to cause damage'.
The stark rise is most evident in colon cancer which was not considered a young persons cancer but is up by 200% and thyroid cancer which has more than doubled.
Around 4,000 children and young people develop cancer each year in the UK and it is the leading cause of death in children aged one to 14.
If that is not a wake up call to cut down on the McDonald's and Burger Kings then i don't know what is.

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