IN AUSTRALIA: Cancer overtakes heart disease as biggest killer - WHO

It's a word we all fear, and every day more of us are forced to face it. And now the World Health Organisation has revealed that cancer has overtaken heart disease as the biggest killer in Australia and globally.

Despite having access to some of the best healthcare in the world, experts say, Australia still faces many thousands of deaths each year from the disease.

    There's no doubt alcohol contributes to a chronic disease like cancer.

While cancers linked to poverty are prevalent in some countries, in Australia it is affluence that is killing us.

The co-author of the WHO World Cancer Report, Bernard Stewart, said the main message was that cancer is a “largely preventable disease”.
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The University of NSW professor, who is head of cancer control at the South Eastern Sydney Public Health Unit, said the increasing burden of cancer - with 14.1 million cases in 2012 - meant something had to be done to stop cancers before they occurred.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/cancer-overtakes-heart-disease-as-biggest-killer-in-australia-world-health-organisation-20140204-31yob.html#ixzz2sMzClEnn