British researchers predict that cancer cases would rise as people live longer

#cancerresearchuk #publichealth #nhs Cancer Research UK has announced that every second person in the UK would fall victim to cancer during their lifetime because the life expectancy has improved and people are, today, living longer and cancer is usually associated with old age. This has been reported in news.sky.com dated 4 February 2015.
This ‘every second person’ was earlier one in three - and the authorities have warned that Britain would face a major crisis if it did not plan ahead. Of course, the charity has added that while the increase is largely attributed to people living longer, the number of people who are surviving the disease has never been higher.
The study was carried out by Professor Peter Sasieni, from Queen Mary University of London – in his words, ‘cancer is a disease of old age."
In the opinion of Cancer Research UK, there is no single solution for curing all types of cancer but, it needs a boost to public health and the NHS so that they can tackle looming demands for better diagnostics, treatments and earlier diagnosis. It has also indicated that the survival rate in Britain has doubled over the last 40 years and at a rough estimate, nearly half of the patients now survive the illness for more than 10 years.
Statistically speaking, the lifetime cancer risk for men and women in 1980 was 27.2%, it improved to 32.7% in 1990, ten years later in 2000, it was 37.1% and in 2010 it was 41.8%.

Obesity is a £47bn annual problem for Britain - NHS to get obese Britons back to shape

#waistline #NHS #obesity #diabetes The growing waistlines is a major worry for the NHS and they are working out probable methods of how to get the obese Britons back to shape. That is a target for 2015.
Obesity costs Britain nearly £47bn annually and with this disease on the rise in the UK, health authorities are rolling out a new program that will be aimed at getting the nation back in shape through a better diet and more exercise. Under this scheme, GPs in England will be directed to monitor patients who are putting on weight and offer them help to stop them becoming obese.
The amount of £47bn annually is more than the cost incurred by Britain on war and terrorism. Based on a report from the European Commission, it is revealed that the obesity rate in the UK has increased over the past decade. It is now the second highest in the EU after Hungary.
Therefore, NHS will undertake a program through which thousands of people at risk of diabetes will be offered support to improve their health. Incidentally, there are reported to be over three million people in the UK who have diabetes.
NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens has remarked that even a couple of decades back, such a situation did not exist. In order to combat this, it is necessary for parents, schools and the food industry must act together to reverse the trend. The European Court of Justice has recently ruled that people who are obese could also be considered as disabled.