More people diagnosed with cancer than getting married or having child

DEVELOPING cancer is now more common than getting married or having a first baby, research suggests.

Analysis by Macmillan Cancer Support shows there were 361,216 cancers diagnosed in 2014 in the UK compared with 289,841 marriages.

There were 271,050 babies born to first-time mothers in England and Wales in 2015, while 319,011 new cases of cancer were recorded.

The data also showed that, over the past decade, more than 1.2million people under the age of 65 have been diagnosed with cancer, including 343,000 aged between 20 and 50.

Lynda Thomas, chief executive of Macmillan Cancer Support, said: “Being told you have cancer changes your life, and it can leave people feeling as if they have been thrust into the unknown, bewildered and unprepared.

“But as more and more people are being diagnosed with cancer, it’s important that we are all better informed about what to expect if we do one day receive this shocking news,” she added. “Cancer is almost always life-changing, but it isn’t always life-ending.”

Research among more than 2,000 people for the charity also showed that cancer is the disease people feared the most (37 per cent), ahead of Alzheimer’s disease (27 per cent), stroke (7 per cent), depression (4 per cent), heart disease (4 per cent) or multiple sclerosis (2 per cent). And for one in 10 people in the UK (10 per cent), cancer is their biggest fear of all, ahead of losing a loved one, their own death or terrorism.

Projections suggest that around half of people will develop cancer at some point in their lives.

However, 90 per cent of people with cancer surveyed said they were still living their lives as normally as they could.

Jane Ives, 49, from Hampshire, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014, said: “Getting a diagnosis of cancer was probably the single most terrifying thing that has happened to me.

“My biggest fear by far was not seeing my children fully grow up.”