UK men with heart disease at higher risk of developing and dying from cancer

Decade-long study finds stark gender difference in outcomes of people with heart disease Millions of men with heart disease have a higher risk of developing and dying from cancer, according to a decades-long study. The biggest drivers behind male cases were smoking, obesity and drinking too much alcohol, researchers said, with the link most pronounced in lung and oesophageal cancers. Analysing health data from 22,000 Britons over 25 years, researchers at the University of Aberdeen and Keele University discovered stark gender differences in outcomes of people living with heart disease. About half the participants – 11,000 – had cardiovascular disease (CVD) at the start of the study, or developed it over the next three decades. The lifetime risk of cancer among those with CVD was higher in men (17.3%) compared with women (12.8%), the study found. In those without CVD, cancer risk was 10.2% among men and 8.2% for women. Dr Tiberiu Pana, a specialty registrar in cardiology at NHS Grampian and honorary early career clinical research fellow at the University of Aberdeen, said: “We found that cancer incidence and death were higher in people with cardiovascular disease than in those withou