My battle to beat cancer, by the BBC’S George Alagiah
BBC newsreader George Alagiah has been diagnosed with bowel cancer, it was revealed yesterday.
The 58-year- old, who anchors the News at Six programme, will take a break from his presenting duties while he undergoes treatment.
In a statement, the BBC said: ‘He is grateful for all the good wishes he has received thus far and is optimistic for a positive outcome’.
It added: ‘George asks that he and his family are given the space and privacy they require whilst he recovers. Our thoughts are with him and his family and we send them our very best wishes during this time.’
Mr Alagiah is one of the BBC’s most respected newsreaders. He first began fronting the 6pm bulletin in 2003 and became its main presenter in 2007 following the departure of his co-host Natasha Kaplinsky.
He also presents BBC World News programme GMT, but has not been seen on air since Thursday last week.
The Sri-Lankan born presenter joined the BBC 25 years ago after working as a print journalist, and has worked as a foreign correspondent, covering civil wars in Somalia and Liberia as well as the Rwandan genocide in 1994. He was made an OBE in the 2008 New Year’s Honours.
Six years ago he spoke about his admiration for medical care in Britain after his father was treated for leukaemia.
He said: ‘The NHS is the civilising and defining institution of British life.
‘I appreciate it as a former foreign correspondent, having come from the poor world to the rich world, and having spent most of my working life in countries where people wish they had something like the NHS.’
The news of his diagnosis came as researchers found that one in three of us has a gene that can more than double the odds of developing bowel cancer – and the more processed meat you eat, the higher the risk.
Bowel cancer is the third most common type of cancer. If diagnosed in its earliest stages, the chance of surviving a further five years is 90 per cent and a complete cure is usually possible, according to NHS statistics.
Processed meat products have long been blamed for increasing the odds of the disease, with some studies finding that eating as little as one sausage a day can lead to tumours.
But this latest research is the first to find a gene that links diet with the disease. In the future,
‘Optimistic for a positive outcome’
people’s DNA could be tested for rogue genes – and then given a diet to keep tumours at bay.
In the largest study of its kind, University of Southern California researchers pooled ten previous studies to compare the DNA of more than 9,000 people with bowel cancer and a similar number without the disease.
The results, published in the journal PLOS Genetics, showed that around one in three of us has the rogue gene, according to researcher Jane Figueiredo. Genes come in pairs, and those who have one flawed gene and eat the most processed meat are almost twice as likely to develop bowel cancer as those who have healthy DNA.
Having two rogue genes means the risk is increased 2.7 times. It isn’t clear how these foods interact with the gene to increase the odds of the bowel cancer, but it may be because they tamper with the immune system.
Mark Flannagan, of the charity Beating Bowel Cancer, said: ‘There is strong scientific evidence that red and processed meats can increase your risk of bowel cancer.
‘This study reinforces the message that it’s important to reduce the amount of red and processed meats that we eat.
‘We recommend that eating less than 500g (1.1lb) of red meat a week and avoiding processed meats as much as possible.’
The study’s co-researcher Dr Li Hsu said: ‘The possibility that genetic variants may modify an i ndividual’s risk for disease based on diet has not been thoroughly investigated but represents an important new insight into disease development.’