Mortality rates from cancers will fall in future

I question the figures given as accurately portrayed under the early detection of cancers programme for Argyll, inferring that the targets have not been reached (‘Early diagnoses of cancers fall’, The Oban Times, August 9).

In the future, because of our unique system of early detection and diagnosis here, we shall become a leader in this field, with the current 65 per cent mortality rate reducing hopefully to 35 per cent over the next decade or so, due to a number of factors.

As we are all subject to some levels of pollution and contact with various toxins daily, perhaps mainly from the food we eat, these must be reduced, but perhaps more so from what our food is packaged in.

Historically, in the Western Isles and Highlands, a lot of the food, especially fish, is smoked. But smoking has known carcinogenic factors, so ditching the barbecue for oily fish twice a week may help reduce the current dramatic rise in women’s cancers referred at Glasgow.

Also, the general public is subjected to supermarkets full of food covered in soft, sticky plastics – fish, meat, chicken, vegetables, bacon, cheese, pizzas and so on are all wrapped in microscopically-laden toxic plastic packaging, which leach out on contact and more so under heat.

So food packaged in cardboard boxes or glass or tin should be also be preferred and eating 15 per cent of your diet as organic will also help keep us healthy, along with our five a day.

However, the biggest fight is to get the multi-billion-pound packaging industry to package less, as well as more safely and responsibly.

So eat more good quality, locally-sourced food. After all, we are spoiled for choice in the Argyll and the Isles area – preferably not wrapped in toxic soft plastic.

The recipe for health and longevity is one daily small tot of the water of life or a glass of port - the oldest woman in the world had two a day and lived to the age of 122 – and to eat like a mouse.

Stephen Jones, Burnside Place, Millpark, Oban.