Healthy living 'could prevent 600,000 cancer deaths'

Healthier living could have prevented almost 600,000 cases of cancer in the UK in the last five years, a report claims.

Overall, more than four in 10 cancers could be avoided if people made changes to their lifestyle, according to new figures from Cancer Research UK.

Smoking is a well known cause of cancer and accounted for more than 314,000 cases in the past five years, said the charity.

But it added that a further 145,000 cancers might have been averted if more people ate a balanced diet low in red and processed meat and salt, and high in vegetables, fruit and fibre.

Maintaining a healthy weight could have prevented around 88,000 cases, while tens of thousands of cancers were linked to excess alcohol, failing to protect the skin from sun, and lack of exercise.

Professor Max Parkin, a Cancer Research UK statistician based at Queen Mary, University of London - whose work provided the basis of the report - said: