According to research, taking a holiday– particularly a sunny one – can lower your IQ.A Health warning- two weeks’ holiday could reduce your IQ by as much as 20 points, but, fortunately, the effect is only temporary.

Holidays, it seems – particularly to sweltering destinations – can impair mental functioning.

The problems begin when you book your holiday online, particularly if this entails a lengthy email exchange. According to a 2005 study by psychologist Glenn Wilson, visiting professor at Gresham College, London, email “bombardment” can reduce IQ by up to 10 points – more than double the effect of smoking a considerable amount of cannabis.

Prof Wilson has labelled the condition “infomania”. Concentration is impaired as sufferers’ minds remain fixed in an almost permanent state of readiness to react to potential incoming messages, as opposed to focusing on tasks in hand.

Even on a good day, the human brain finds it hard to cope with juggling multiple tasks simultaneously, so the email overload further reduces its effectiveness.

Then you actually have to get to your holiday resort.

The stress of modern travel – worries over airport strikes, volcanic ash or whether you’re in the right queue for priority boarding – can increase levels of cortisol, the stress hormone.

This risks damaging cells in part of the brain called the hippocampus, which in turn adversely affects short-term memory and concentration.

Add a restorative drink while airborne and, depending on the beverage, you could drop another 10 to 20 IQ points, according to Alcohol Concern. And you haven’t even checked into your hotel yet.

It is at this point that phrenic Armageddon really kicks in. Research by Professor Siegfried Lehrl of the University of Erlangen in Germany, a specialist in mental performance, suggests that sunbathing and relaxation cause one’s frontal lobes literally to shrivel.

Prof Lehrl says that inactivity reduces oxygen to the brain, which causes the dendrites and axons (parts of the nerve cells involved in sending electrical impulses) to degrade. Add dehydration caused by excess heat, alcohol, or both, and brain cell volume may decrease by up to 15 per cent.

“Fourteen days of complete rest can be enough to bring your IQ down by 20 points – more than the difference between a bright and an average student,” says Prof Lehrl. “Vocabulary shrinks, and we even detect personality changes.”

For men, this loss of intelligence may well be exacerbated by the vision of the opposite sex in bikinis. A 2008 study for The Journal of Consumer Research concluded that merely looking at women in beach garb “instigates generalised impatience in intertemporal choice”.

In layman’s terms, men’s judgment and self-critical faculties are compromised, and, in worst-case scenarios, they will propose to (or proposition) the first girl who winks at them.

At this point, you might be tempted to down a cold beer or a Gin and Tonic at the poolside bar. Don’t!

Researchers at Bristol University discovered that drinking anything overly cold reduces brain power by as much as 10 IQ points, as energy and blood are diverted from the brain to the stomach, to balance the drop in temperature.

So how can you negate the nightmare effects of your dream vacation?

According to Prof Lehrl, you should exercise your brain on holiday for at least 10 minutes a day by playing an intellectually stimulating game (chess or Scrabble, for instance), mitigate inactivity with regular long walks, rehydrate constantly – and chew lots of gum.

Gum? “The part of the brainstem that keeps us alert is constantly stimulated by chewing, as a result of which the attention level rises, as does the flow of blood to the brain.”

If you lack the willpower to follow the professor’s advice, the good news is that, unless you did propose to the first girl who winked at you (and she accepted), the consequences of a vacation are temporary. Four days later, your IQ usually returns to normal.

So next time you see raucous holidaymakers necking beers and mooning passers-by, try not to be too judgmental: they are probably email-overloaded nuclear safety engineers who have neglected to chew gum. Hopefully, they will leave a sensible interval between returning to work and installing their reactor’s control rods.

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Sun-sea-and-shrinking-brain-power

Drinks industry lobbyists now make up almost half the members of a key body tasked with advising ministers on alcohol policy, research papers show.
Seven out of 16 members of the Government and Partners Alcohol Working Group are from industry, up from just a couple last autumn.

Critics believe it is evidence that the Coalition is pandering to the interests of the drinks industry, potentially at the expense of the nation’s health.

Some nine million people in Britain suffer from the harms of alcohol in some, either directly or indirectly, while the cost to the NHS stands at £2.7 billion a year.

Don Shenker, chief executive of the charity Alcohol Concern, believed companies were being allowed a bigger say in “setting the agenda” under the Coalition.

Speaking of the changes to the working group “I can only imagine it’s because this government believes that the drinks industry has a big role to play in shaping policy, in setting the agenda.

“And so they have extended the invitations to a larger set of people from the drinks industry.”

However, Anne Milton, the Public Health Minister, claimed ignorance of the body.

She said: “I think we have a communications problem in Whitehall because you know something that I have never heard of before.”

In opposition David Cameron talked tough on alcohol abuse, and the Conservatives’ manifesto said the party would ban off-licences and supermarkets from selling alcohol below cost price.

In January the Coalition announced that retailers would be banned from selling drinks for less than the value of duty and VAT.

But they will not have to take into account the cost of producing the drinks, meaning they will still be able to sell drinks at a net loss.

The Coalition has pursued an approach of working with industry, arguing it will be more effective than legislation.

However, in March eight organisations pulled out of the Coalition’s Public Health Responsibility Deal – including Alcohol Concern, the Institute of Alcohol Studies and the British Liver Trust.

They wrote to Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, saying the deal on alcohol – which includes voluntary agreements with industry – would not help reduce illness or deaths.

At the time Mr Lansley said imposing laws was often “costly” and they could “take years” to implement.

A spokesman for the Department of Health yesterday re-iterated that argument.

She did not deny that changes to the working group had been made.

The spokesman said: “We are committed to challenging the assumption that the only way to change people’s behaviour is through adding to rules and regulations.

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Alcohol-advisory-body-stacked-with-drinks-industry-lobbyists

More British women are developing cancer than the average across Europe a leading charity claims.
Official figures suggest almost a fifth more women in this country develop the disease before the age of 75 compared with those on the continent.

The World Cancer Research Fund, which unearthed the data, fears that the difference could be down to the fact that British women drink and eat too much.

Dr Rachel Thompson, Deputy Head of Science for WCRF, said: “On average, women in the UK are more likely to be overweight and to drink more alcohol than the European average and this is a concern because both these factors increase cancer risk.

“They are not the only reasons for the differing cancer rates, but there is now very strong evidence that women who drink a lot of alcohol are at increased risk of developing the disease and that excess body fat is also an important risk factor.

“This is why one of the big public health challenges we face today is to reduce the amount of alcohol we drink as a nation and to get a grip on the obesity crisis before it spirals out of control.

“Together with other factors such as being physically active and eating a healthy plant-based diet without too much salt or red and processed meat, these changes could make a real difference to the number of women who develop cancer before the age of 75.

“Overall, we estimate about a third of the most common cancers could be prevented by eating healthily, being physically active and maintaining a healthy weight. And for breast cancer, which is the most common type of cancer, about four in 10 cases could be prevented through lifestyle changes.”

Recent estimates suggest that four out of 10 Britons will develop cancer at some point in their lives.

The Office for National Statistics reported last month that 130,043 women were newly diagnosed with the disease in England alone in 2009, a rise of 2.6 per cent on the previous year.

By far the most common type among females is breast cancer, with 40,260 cases in 2009. About a quarter of those who develop such tumours die, despite widespread screening and the development of better drugs in recent decades.

According to World Health Organisation figures, 25 per cent of women across Britain develop cancer by the age of 75.

This is almost 20 per cent more than the average of 21 per cent recorded across Europe.

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Womens-cancer-rates-higher-in-Britain-than-Europe

Government policies for treating drug addicts in England are flawed and “doomed to failure”, a think tank says.
The Centre for Policy Studies says rehabilitation is a better use of the £3.6bn now spent on treating users with drug substitutes like methadone and keeping them on benefits each year.

But it says plans to reward groups which treat addicts so they can return to work are open to manipulation.

The Department of Health said it aimed to get users “off drugs for good”.

The coalition government wants to change the way drug addiction is tackled, with more people with problems diverted away from prison and into treatment as part of what it calls a “rehabilitation revolution”.

Part of this involves rewarding treatment providers who show addicts have improved their health and employment prospects.

A report from the right-of-centre think tank, which has links to the Conservative Party, says these payment by results schemes were being run by the very organisations “responsible for the current failure of policy”.

It says the current annual cost of maintaining treatment for 320,000 problem drug users is made up of £1.7bn in benefits, £1.2bn for looking after their children and £730m for prescribing the heroin substitute methadone.

Kathy Gyngell, Centre of Policy Studies: “The Department of Health has been paying 153,000 people to be on methadone”

The think tank calls for “a real transfer of power from large distant organisations to small innovative providers” for rehabilitation.

It says such units have a better chance of getting addicts off drugs completely, adding: “There is one simple measure of success: That of six months abstinence from drugs.”

According to the report’s author Kathy Gyngell, chairwoman of the prisons and addictions policy forum at the CPS, prescribing methadone to addicts delays their recovery.

She told the BBC: “The state is subsidising people to be any number of years on methadone, which has turned out not to be a cheap option and will only subsidise the tiniest proportion – 2% – to go into a rehabilitation unit that would actually free them from dependency and allow them to live their life.”

A Department of Health spokesman said: “The 2010 Drug Strategy is fundamentally different from those that have gone before.

“Instead of focusing primarily on reducing the harms caused by drug misuse, our approach will be to go much further and offer every support for people to choose recovery as an achievable way out of dependence.”

He added: “Work is under way to support local recovery systems tailored to the needs of communities, many of which are already showing positive results.”

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13826759

Health Direct has for a long time noted the costly failure that is the current policy on drugs. On August 02, 2006 in Risks of taking drugs compared- Scientific review of dangers of drugtaking- Drugs, the real deal

we reproduced the first ranking based upon scientific evidence of harm to both individuals and society.

It was devised by government advisers – then ignored by ministers because of its controversial findings.

The analysis was carried out by David Nutt, the then senior member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, and Colin Blakemore, the chief executive of the Medical Research Council.
http://www.healthdirect.co.uk/2006/08/risks-of-taking-drugs-compared.html

Legal highs are becoming a bigger problem than illegal drugs with many young people wrongly believing they are safe.
Alan Andrews, an ex-heroin addict who runs a Llanelli-based drug intervention centre, said some legal drugs were stronger than illegal counterparts.

The programme has investigated the issue of legal highs, more than a year after the drug mephedrone, or meow meow, was banned.

Legal highs are substances that are manufactured in a laboratory which do not fall under the current legislation of banned substances under the Misuse of Drugs Act, according to Dr Mohan Da Silva, lead clinician for charity Kaleidoscope Wales.

Undercover recording has found shops breaking the law by selling some of these drugs for human consumption.

Mr Andrews, managing director of Chooselife, said: “It’s becoming a bigger problem than illegal drugs because… the message ‘legal’ means safe, which it’s not.

He said some of the legal high drugs “are stronger, more potent than the illegal drugs and it’s quite scary. There’s a generation of young people who are being sold a lie that legal means safe.”

“There has been a lot of talk about whether things are appropriately classified and I think the development of these new compounds at the rate they’re being developed probably warrants a second look at how we control all drugs,” he said.

Legal highs are not new but there are more of them and there are concerns they are getting more potent.

Last month the monitoring centre which records drug use across Europe said new highs were appearing at an “unprecedented” pace.

Some 41 new substances emerged in 2010, 16 of which were first reported in the UK.

The most high profile has been mephedrone, which has been linked to a number of young people’s deaths.

The UK government is planning to bring in temporary banning orders, to allow time for legal highs to be tested.

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-13846006

Health Direct warns that as the bank holiday weekend approaches that the number of alcohol related hospital admissions in England has topped one million for the first time.
An NHS Information Centre report said admissions had increased by 12% between 2008-09 and 2009-10.

That includes liver disease and mental disorders due to alcohol abuse as well as some cancers, accidents and injuries.

The Department of Health will publish a new alcohol strategy later this year.

The number of admissions reached 1,057,000 in 2009-10 compared with 945,500 in 2008-09 and 510,800 in 2002-03.

Earlier this year the charity Alcohol Concern predicted the number of admissions would reach 1.5m a year by 2015. It estimated that would cost the NHS £3.7bn a year.

Tim Straughan, chief executive of the NHS Information Centre, said: “Today’s report shows the number of people admitted to hospital each year for alcohol related problems has topped 1m for the first time.

“The report also highlights the increasing cost of alcohol dependency to the NHS as the number of prescription items dispensed continues to rise.

“This report provides health professionals and policy makers with a useful picture of the health issues relating to alcohol use and misuse. It also highlights the importance of policy makers and health professionals in recognising and tackling alcohol misuse which in turn could lead to savings for the NHS.”

Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, the chair of the UK Alcohol Health Alliance, said: “This confirms doctors’ impressions that the health harm from alcohol continues to rise.”

“While total alcohol consumption has fallen in recent years it is likely that the number of abstainers in England is increasing, but those who do drink continue to do so in a harmful and destructive way.”

The body which represents drinks manufacturers in the UK, the Portman Group, expressed surprise that admissions had increased at the same time as alcohol consumption had decreased.

David Poley, chief executive of the Portman Group, said: “If the hospital admissions data are robust, they clearly put paid to the argument that measures to reduce overall alcohol consumption are effective in reducing harm.

“The report shows that the proportion of people misusing alcohol is falling. We just need to find a way of persuading and educating this hard core of misusers who account for these admissions to drink responsibly.”

Alcohol Concern said the latest set of figures were alarming but that early detection of alcoholism contributed to the increase.

Its director of policy and communications, Nicolay Sorensen, said: “More people than ever before are drinking in a way that is harming their health and it’s a serious public health problem. It’s one of the biggest public health problems facing the country.

“In addition, the NHS has been doing some great work to identify people that have alcohol problems and so some of the increase is due to better identification and better referral.”

Public Health Minister Anne Milton said: “These statistics show that the old ways of tackling public health problems have not always yielded the necessary improvements.

“We are already taking action to tackle problem drinking, including plans to stop supermarkets selling below cost alcohol and working to introduce a tougher licensing regime.

“We will also be publishing a new alcohol strategy later this year.”

Rates of alcohol-related hospital admissions came down in the past two years in Scotland, after increasing for a decade. In Wales, figures for up to 2006 showed increasing admission rates and in Northern Ireland the total number of admissions increased year on year since 2006/07.

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13559455

Leading health organisations have slammed the Government’s “responsibility deal” on alcohol and refused to sign up as partners.
The six organisations, including Alcohol Concern, the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Physicians, accused the Department of Health of allowing the drinks industry to dictate health policy.

Under the deal, the drinks industry would be asked to sign up to a number of alcohol pledges.

These reportedly include ensuring 80% of products on the shelf are labelled for unit content, raising awareness of the unit content of drinks in pubs and clubs and taking action to reduce under-age drinking.

There would also be a pledge to commit to action on advertising and marketing by promoting responsible drinking and keeping alcohol adverts away from schools.

But the six organisations which had been involved in the Government’s Responsibility Deal Alcohol Network (RDAN), which also include the British Association for the Study of the Liver, the British Liver Trust, and the Institute of Alcohol Studies, refused to support the deal.

They said the pledges were neither specific nor measurable, that they lacked scope and that there was no evidence such voluntary interventions would be effective.

The statement read: “We have not yet seen evidence that Government is working towards a comprehensive, cross-departmental strategy to reduce alcohol harm, based on evidence of what works, with rigorous evaluation metrics.”

The organisations called on the Government to provide:

• A clear and firm commitment on how it intends – via evidence based policy – to tackle affordability, availability and promotion of alcohol as part of a cross-government strategy;

• A clear presentation of the steps that will be taken if the current RDA objectives are not met in 12 months’ time;

• A firm commitment to consider change – including through regulation – if voluntary commitments from business are not met after an agreed time period.

Don Shenker, chief executive of Alcohol Concern, said: “This is the worst possible deal for everyone who wants to see alcohol harm reduced.

“There are no firm targets or any sanctions if the drinks industry fails to fulfil its pledges.  It’s all carrot and no stick for the drinks industry and supermarkets.”

“By allowing the drinks industry to propose such half-hearted pledges on alcohol with no teeth, this Government has clearly shown that when it comes to public health its first priority is to side with big business and protect private profit.”

Dr Vivienne Nathanson, director of professional activities at the BMA, said: “The Government has talked the talk in respect of wanting to tackle alcohol misuse but when it comes to taking tough action that will achieve results, it falls short.

“Instead it has chosen to rely on the alcohol industry to develop policies – given the inherent conflict of interest these will do nothing to reduce the harm caused by alcohol misuse.”

Katherine Brown, Head of Research and Communications at the Institute of Alcohol Studies, said: “The most effective means of reducing alcohol-related harm is through adjustments in affordability, availability and promotion.

“These policies are supported by a broad evidence base and have been recommended to Government by a recent cross party House of Commons Health Committee report.

“The Responsibility Deal fails to address any of these policy areas and we are yet to see any real proof that Government is looking into developing a cross-departmental comprehensive alcohol strategy, based on evidence of what works.”

Alison Rogers, chief executive of the British Liver Trust, said: “For more than 10 years we have been persuaded to play the long game, sitting and watching the alcohol industry cultivate their relationship with the Government.

“Now it must stop for the sake of the 100 families losing loved ones each week from alcohol-related liver disease.”

And Sir Ian Gilmore, the Royal College of Physicians’ special adviser on alcohol, said: “The industry pledges published in various newspapers do not give practising doctors, who see the rising tide of health harm from drink in their daily practice, any confidence that they will get to the core of how we reverse this entirely preventable cause of illness and death.”

Sir Ian was among a trio of experts who recently warned the Government that up to 250,000 extra lives could be lost in the next 20 years in England and Wales unless tough restrictions on alcohol are introduced.

The liver death rate in the UK is 11.4 per 100,000 people, more than double that of other countries with similar drinking cultures, including Australia and Holland.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said: “We have made clear from the start that the responsibility deal is just one strand of the Government’s wide public health policy. It explicitly excludes cost and price competition to avoid conflicts of interest.

“The Treasury have already announced an introduction of a new tax on super-strength beers; the Home Office have made their announcement on a ban in sales of alcohol below cost and plans to tighten licensing laws; and, our public health strategy sets out how local areas will be given a ring-fenced public health budget to ensure alcohol misuse gets the priority it deserves.

“In tandem to this action, the responsibility deal is working with the industry on voluntary agreements to get speedier results. For example, to improve unit labelling. The Responsibility Deal has achieved more in the last six months than the previous Government’s Coalition for Better Health did in a year and a half. What is more, this is only the first step.”

From: http://www.independent.co.uk/health-bodies-attack-government-alcohol-plans

Health Direct wonders if you have had a good weekend as the number of admissions to hospital in the UK because of problem drinking could rise to 1.5 million a year by 2015, a charity says.
Alcohol Concern estimates that alcohol abuse will cost the NHS £3.7bn annually if nothing is done to stop the increase.

It wants alcohol specialists to be employed in all hospitals and GP practices.

The Department of Health said it would publish a new alcohol strategy in the summer.

Thousands of people die each year as a result of their drinking, mostly as a result of alcoholic liver disease. Drinking is also associated with an increased risk of heart disease, stroke and some cancers.

The charity says the number of people being treated in hospital for alcohol misuse has gone from 500,000 in 2002-3 to 1.1 million in 2009-10.

It states that 1.5 million people will need treating every year by the end of the Parliament, if there is no new investment in alcohol services to stop the rise.

The report calls for specialist alcohol health workers to be employed across the health service. It claims this will in fact save the NHS £3 for every £1 spent.

Don Shenker, chief executive at Alcohol Concern, said: “With the prime minister saying that NHS is becoming ‘increasingly unaffordable’, we can show how billions can be saved simply by introducing alcohol health workers in hospitals to help patients reduce their drinking.

“As problem drinking costs the country so dear, a modest investment in supporting problem drinkers will lead to a three-fold saving, surely a necessity in an economic downturn.”

Primary care trusts in England, which are being abolished as part of government changes to the health service, are criticised in the report for not dedicating enough of their budgets to alcohol problems.

The authors identify the transfer of powers to GPs as an “ideal chance” to transform alcohol services.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health said: “Misuse of alcohol can cause significant harm and the government has wasted no time in taking tough action to tackle problem drinking, including plans to stop supermarkets from selling alcohol below cost and working to introduce a tougher licensing regime.

“It is clear we need a bold new approach to tackling this and other public health issues because so many of the life-style driven health problems are already at alarming levels.

“That is why the newly published strategy for public health sets out plans to ring-fence public health spending, devolve power and budgets to local communities, and work across areas from behavioural science to education to improve public health.

“We will also be publishing a new alcohol strategy to follow on from the Public Health White Paper in the summer.”

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12428856

One in eight women will develop breast cancer as rates have risen over the past decade, according to new figures.
The number of middle aged women contracting the disease has increased particularly sharply, with lifestyle factors partly to blame.

British women are drinking and eating more than before, and exercising less, as well as having babies later in life which also adds to risk.

However early diagnosis and survival rates are improving, with two-thirds of breast cancer sufferers now surviving 20 years or more.

The new figures were published by Cancer Research UK to coincide with World Cancer Day.

Sara Hiom, the leading charity’s director of health information, said: “Women cannot change their genes but small changes in everyday habits can help to reduce cancer risk.

“Cutting back on alcohol by keeping within government recommended limits of no more than 14 units a week (a small drink a day) helps.

“Taking more exercise and eating a diet high in fibre but low in saturated fat can help maintain a healthy weight – which in turn reduces breast cancer risk.

“Women should also discuss hormone replacement therapy with their doctor as long-term use can raise breast cancer risk.

“Mammograms will pick up breast cancers early on before they can be felt as a lump or spotted through other visible changes and we know that the earlier a cancer is detected the more successful treatment is likely to be so women can benefit by taking up invitations to breast screening.”

The data, obtained from the Office for National Statistics, show that in 1999 there were 42,400 women diagnosed with breast cancer in Britain.

By 2008 that figure had risen by 3.5 per cent to reach 47,700, meaning that the lifetime risk has risen from one in nine women to one in eight.

The biggest rise in cases – more than 6 per cent – was among women aged between 50 and 69, while rates dropped slightly among younger generations.

Almost half of those who develop breast tumours are middle-aged, while a third are pensioners and just one in five aged between 25 and 49.

Cancer Research said there is “good news” on survival thanks to improved technology, with three-quarters of women living for at least 10 years after being diagnosis with breast cancer.

Around 1.5 million women are screened for breast cancer in Britain every year and screening every three years will soon be extended to those aged between 47 and 73.

Dr Rachel Greig, Senior Policy Officer at Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said: “These figures are a wake up call and should not be ignored. More women are developing breast cancer and, although survival is improving thanks to breakthroughs in breast awareness, screening and treatment, we clearly have much further to go.

“Some risk factors, such as getting older, cannot be changed but the good news is that others can. By drinking less, maintaining a healthy weight and getting physically active, women can reduce their risk of developing breast cancer.”

Jane Maher, chief medical officer at Macmillan Cancer Support, said: “These figures confirm what Macmillan professionals are seeing on the ground, that breast cancer is continuing to increase.

“There is some good news in that earlier diagnosis and better treatments mean that more women are surviving their cancer. In fact, there are now almost 550,000 women living with a breast cancer diagnosis in the UK.

“Therefore it is vitally important that resources are better used to ensure women get the care and support they need to have a good quality of life after treatment.”

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Breast-cancer-will-hit-one-in-eight-women-study-indicates

Women in Britain are more likely to be be diagnosed with breast cancer than those in most other developed countries because of their unhealthy lifestyles, according to a new study.
Analysis of data collected by the respected World Health Organisation shows Britain has higher rates of the potentially fatal disease than the USA, Australia, Germany and Spain.

In only 10 of the 50 countries assessed by the researchers do women have a higher chance of being diagnosed with breast cancer than those in the UK.

The experts said that many of the 46,000 breast cancer cases in the UK each year could be avoided if British women drank less, ate more healthily or took more exercise.

More than a quarter of women who develop the disease in Britain die from it, as survival rates have remained low despite record investment in the NHS under Labour.

Professor Martin Wiseman, medical and scientific adviser for the World Cancer Research Fund, which compiled the new study, said: “We know that people in high-income countries are more likely to be overweight, to drink a lot of alcohol and to be inactive.

“When you look at the list, it is clear that the countries that do worse for these factors tend to be nearer the top.

“The high incidence rates in the UK, Denmark and other high-income countries are not inevitable and lifestyle changes can make a real difference to people’s risk.”

Sarah Woolnough, Cancer Research UK’s director of policy, said: “We do know that up to half of all cancers could be prevented by changes to lifestyle such as giving up smoking, keeping a healthy weight and cutting down on alcohol. People can also reduce their risk by eating a healthy balanced diet that is high in fibre, fruit and vegetables and low in red and processed meat.

“All these things, along with taking regular exercise and avoiding sunburn, can reduce the risk of developing cancer.”

More and more British women have been developing breast cancer in recent decades as diets have worsened, excessive drinking has become more common and exercise rates fallen.

Detection rates have improved thanks to the development of advanced screening techniques and increased awareness, but 12,000 women still die from the disease each year as Britain spends less on treatment drugs than other European nations.

Earlier this month the Department of Health announced a new £750 million cancer strategy aimed at saving the lives of 5,000 people a year in England, by giving GPs greater access to advanced diagnosis and improving investment in radiotherapy.

The WHO, through a project called GLOBOCAN, collects figures on the incidence of and deaths from the most common types of cancer for countries across the world, standardised for age in order to aid comparisons.

Its most recent data, analysed by the WCRF for today’s report, show that Belgium had the highest rates of breast cancer in 2008, with 109.2 cases per 100,000 women.

Britain is 11th, with 89.1 cases per 100,000, not as bad as Denmark, the Netherlands, Israel, Ireland or New Zealand but worse than many other leading nations as well as less developed countries where lifestyles are less sedentary. Just 50 in every 100,000 women develop breast cancer in Estonia and Montenegro, for instance.

Britain is the 12th worst of the 50 countries in terms of rates of all cancers among women.

The picture is slightly better for men, where the UK ranks as the 33rd worst. Overall, across both sexes, Britain is ranked 22nd worst out of 50 countries with 267 out of every 100,000 people developing tumours.

International studies have shown that Britons now eat and drink more than their counterparts in many other countries.

Recent figures from the Office for National Statistics show that one in seven women over the age of 16 drinks more than double the recommended daily allowance of alcohol every week, while 24 per cent of women in England are classified obese.

Denmark was given the overall title of “cancer capital of the world”, and although it has a good record of diagnosing the disease, the WCRF said the country’s residents drank a lot and Danish women were heavy smokers.

Meg McArthur, Senior Policy and Information Officer, Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said: “Although these statistics show that we have further to go before we have a future free from the fear of breast cancer in the UK, it is important to remember that more women than ever are surviving due to better screening, improved treatment and greater awareness.

“Breast cancer is thought to be due to a combination of lifestyle, genetic and environmental factors and although some risk factors cannot be changed, women can reduce their risk by drinking less, maintaining a healthy weight and exercising regularly.”

The Government and leading cancer charities insist that Britain’s position near the top of the cancer incidence tables shows that the disease is being picked up by doctors, which aids early treatment, and point out that other countries may not record data so accurately.

Sarah Woolnough, from Cancer Research UK, added: “Comparing cancer incidence rates between different countries can be misleading due to differences in how the data is collected. In some countries, such as the UK, the whole population is accounted for in the data. But in others, coverage is much smaller, so the overall figures might not actually be representative of the whole country.

“Age is the biggest risk factor for cancer, so high-income countries where people live for longer will tend to have higher incidence rates.”

The National Cancer Director, Professor Sir Mike Richards, said: “There are many important factor to consider when looking at cancer incidence figures – for example smoking, alcohol, obesity, and other lifestyle choices.

“We want to vastly improve cancer outcomes – that’s why we will shortly be launching the first ever Government awareness campaign for cancer, to promote earlier diagnosis and to save more lives.”

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Alcohol-and-poor-diet-linked-to-UK-breast-cancer-rates