More people in the UK are overweight and obesity is “increasingly normal”, Cancer Research UK warned DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/PABritain’s obesity crisis is to blame for 23,000 cases of cancer a year and is on course to overtake smoking as the main preventable cause of the disease, researchers have warned. A third of cancers stem from unhealthy living, with one in 16 now down to being overweight or obese, according to the most detailed estimates yet. More than 2,500 cases a week could be avoided if people shunned tobacco, alcohol, bad diets and other habits now known to cause the disease, Cancer Research UK calculations published today suggest. Smoking remains the biggest lifestyle cause of cancer, responsible for 54,000 cases — 15.1 per cent — annually, but the toll is falling as more people kick the habit. Being overweight is second, causing 6.3 per…

Source: The Times March 23, 2018 00:00 UTC