TEENAGE HEALTH TRAP

HOW their behaviour and habits affect their long-term health. This week: Starting sex too young A THIRD of young women have sex before the legal age of consent at 16, according to the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles survey.

Sex at an earlier age can double the risk of cervical cancer — tumours that develop in the cervix (the neck of the womb).

Almost all cases are caused by the human papilloma virus (HPV), which is passed to women through sex. Younger women are at risk because of changing hormone levels and increased cell turn-over in that area of the body as it matures, says Gabrielle Downey, a gynaecologist at Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust.

Research involving 20,000 women, published in the British Journal of Cancer in 2009, found that poorer women had a higher risk of the disease — mainly because they started having sex about four years earlier than women who were better off.