I'm worried by the news that too much booze is increasingly to blame for mouth cancer. You'd have to come from a different planet not to know that excess alcohol leads to liver damage, heart disease and stroke.

But this new finding by Cancer Research UK may mean trouble for the future as it can take many years for the effects of lifestyle changes, such as today's binge-drinking, to show up. More than 5,000 people are diagnosed with this cancer each year in the UK - and there's been a big rise among people in their 40s. Mouth cancer was once hardly seen in people under 50 but, since the mid-1990s, rates of oral cancers have gone up by 28% for men in their 40s and 24% for women.

We've known for ages that smoking and drinking are two major lifestyle risk factors for this disease - both habits together are especially damaging. That's because alcohol makes it easier for the mouth and throat to absorb the cancer-causing chemicals in tobacco.

But, while the number of people who smoke has gone down since the 1950s, alcohol consumption has doubled. Because mouth cancer has a low profile and symptoms may be pain-free, it can slip through the net with devastating effects. Late diagnosis of oral cancer can lead to disfiguring surgery, and it causes around 1,800 deaths a year. To me, this is nothing short of tragic considering that survival can be as high as 90% if it is caught early.