Posted October 22, 2010
DRINKING, smoking and unhealthy diets have fuelled a doubling in mouth, throat and food pipe cancers in young people, experts have warned. Each year the diseases, known as upper aero-digestive tract cancers, kill 10,000 people in the UK and more than 100,000 across Europe.
Sufferers include Michael Douglas, 66, who is receiving gruelling treatment for throat cancer.
But the cancers are also becoming increasingly common among younger people and Aberdeen University researchers set out to find out why.
The five-year study, funded by a European Union grant, looked at 350 patients under the age of 50 with UADT cancers and 400 patients who did not have the diseases.
Almost nine in ten of the cancers were caused by smoking, drinking alcohol or a lack of fruit and vegetables in the diet – the factors already known to fuel the tumours in the elderly.
Professor of epidemiology Gary Macfarlane, who led the study, said: ‘Cancers of the upper aero-digestive tract are on the increase throughout the world and to date the increases have been greatest in young adults under the age of 50.
‘For example, we have witnessed a doubling of oral cancer rates in 40 to 49-year-old men in the UK over the last 20 years.
‘The results of our study further emphasise that the message we need to be communicating to the public remains the same – that smoking, drinking and diet are the major triggers of these diseases at all ages,’ Professor Macfarlane added.