Cancer causes 30 percent of deaths

Cancer accounted for almost one in three deaths in the UK last year, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Tuesday. Of all of the deaths registered in England and Wales, 30 percent were attributable to cancer. Circulatory diseases including heart attacks and strokes accounted for 29 percent of deaths, while respiratory diseases including pneumonia were responsible for 14 percent. Coronary heart disease was the biggest killer for men and women, with almost 65,000 deaths. The second leading cause of mortality in women was dementia and Alzheimer's disease, accounting for 10.3 percent of female deaths. Lung cancer was the second leading cause of death in men. In 2011, 484,367 people died - a fall of 1.8 percent on the previous year when 493,242 deaths were registered. The ONS said it was the third year in a row that annual death registrations were below half a million. The report said that "mortality rates are generally falling; reasons for this include medical advances in the treatment of many illnesses and diseases." Mubeen Bhutta, policy manager at the British Heart Foundation, said that "once again we have seen a decline in the number of people dying from heart disease, however it remains the single biggest killer. "The governments in England and Wales are currently working on strategies to tackle heart disease and these new figures should give them a fresh sense of urgency."