Cancer becomes number one killer of men in UK

LONDON: Cancer has become the number one killer of men in the United Kingdom, overtaking Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) as the primary cause of death.
A study by the British Medical Journal published on Thursday has found that in 2012 cancer was the primary cause of death in 29 per cent of cases as opposed to 28 per cent due to CVD. Among women, heart diseases and stroke remained number one. The equivalent figures were 27 per cent and 28 per cent from CVD and cancer, respectively , for women. Cancer has overtaken CVD to become the main cause of death in a number of European countries, for example, in Belgium, Denmark and France.

CVD accounted for a total of nearly 42,000 premature deaths (before the age of 75) in 2012, accounting for more than one in four premature deaths in men and around one in five (18 per cent) in women.