Mental Health in the News

"Breast cancer screening could cause more harm than good," The Daily Telegraph has today reported. The newspaper says up to half of the benefit that some women get from living longer lives could be cancelled out by others having misdiagnoses or unnecessary treatments. For example, some women may have surgery to remove cancers that would not have gone on to cause them any problems. Diagnosis of these cancers is referred to as "overdiagnosis" and their treatment as "overtreatment".

"Nuns should take the pill to cut cancer threat," the Daily Mail has reported.

"A bowel cancer screening programme in England is on course to cut deaths by a sixth," the BBC has reported. The story goes on to say, however, that there is concern "that the programme misses tumours in certain parts of the colon".

"Marathons can damage you heart," according to a report in the Daily Mirror.

In 2010, around 43% of cancer cases seen in the UK were caused by lifestyle and environmental factors, according to several news sources today. This equated to around 134,000 cancers caused by potentially avoidable behaviours such as smoking, drinking alcohol and eating a poor diet.