Lazy lifestyles to push cancer rates up 75 pc by 2030

Cancer rates will soar 75 percent worldwide by 2030 as developing nations adopt lazy Western lifestyles, experts have warned.

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According to experts, they could even increase 90 percent in the Third World in that time.

Many cancers - such as breast, prostate and bowel tumours, are linked to unhealthy living in high-income nations.

Countries like India, Pakistan and certain African nations are said to be under threat as their standard of living improves.

Global cancer cases are predicted to rise from 12.7million in 2008 to 22.2million in 2030. Obesity caused by eating processed or junk foods, low exercise levels and high smoking rates have been blamed.

Scientists from the International Agency for Research on Cancer based their findings on a snapshot of statistics for the disease from 184 countries in 2008.

The incidence and death rate estimates were used to project how cancer diagnoses were likely to change by 2030.

The study took into account forecasts of population size, ageing and national development.

"Cancer is already the leading cause of death in many high-income countries. It is set to become a major cause of mortality in the next few decades in every nation of the world," the Sun quoted Freddie Bray, the study leader from the IARC in Lyons, France, as saying.