Drinking, smoking and unhealthy diets have fuelled a doubling in mouth, throat and food pipe cancers in young people.
Every year the diseases, known as upper aero-digestive tract (UADT) cancers, kill 10,000 people in Britain and more than 100,000 across Europe.
Sufferers include Michael Douglas, 66, who is receiving gruelling treatment for throat cancer.
But the cancers are also becoming increasingly common among younger people and researchers set out to find out why, reports the Daily Mail.
The five-year study, funded by a European Union grant, looked at 350 patients under the age of 50 with UADT cancers and 400 patients who did not have the diseases.
Almost nine in 10 of the cancers were caused by smoking, drinking alcohol and/or a lack of fruit and vegetables in the diet — the factors already known to fuel the tumours in the elderly.
Gary Macfarlane, the professor of epidemiology at the Aberdeen University, who led the study, said: “Cancers of the upper aero-digestive tract are on the increase throughout the world and to date the increases have been greatest in young adults under the age of 50.”
“For example, we have witnessed a doubling of oral cancer rates in 40 to 49-year-old men in the UK over the last 20 years.”
“The results of our study further emphasise that the message we need to be communicating to the public remains the same – that smoking, drinking and diet are the major triggers of these diseases at all ages,” Macfarlane said.