A CANCER specialist yesterday invited smoking footballer Paul Gascoigne to visit her hospital to see the effects of cigarettes and alcohol.
Dr Melanie McKean, a clinical research fellow at the Beatson Oncology Unit at Glasgow Western Infirmary, spoke out after a report showed soaring cancer rates among young Scots.
Cancer Research Campaign scientists reveal a 400% increase in tongue, mouth and throat cancer - all linked to alcohol and tobacco consumption - in less than 30 years in men aged 35-49.
The former Rangers player, now with Middlesborough, was criticised after it emerged he has been smoking for six years, a fact condoned by England coach Glenn Hoddle.
Although Gascoigne maintained yesterday he had only ''the odd fag'' and not the 20-a-day reported, the fact that such a popular sportsman and role model smokes at all dismayed anti-tobacco campaigners.
Dr McKean said 10,000 new patients were referred to the Beatson Unit every year, more than 1000 of them with lung cancer. ''If Gazza dropped in, he might see someone of 29, someone else who has just married only seven in 100 will be alive in five years. It would give him something to think about. I have had several people round and by the end they have said it was time to give up.''
Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer death in men and women in Scotland, killing 10,367 men and 5656 women in 1990-93.
Dr David Brewster, director of the Scottish Cancer Registry, said: ''If you smoke and drink, you multiply the two to get the combined risk, rather than adding them.''
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