According to an article in the Guardian, a recent study shows that 1 in 6 people in the UK who are diagnosed with lung cancer, many at a stage when it is incurable, are non-smokers.
They blame the rise on car fumes, secondhand smoke and indoor air pollution, and have urged people to stop using wood-burning stoves because the soot they generate increases risk.
About 6,000 non-smoking Britons a year now die of the disease, more than lose their lives to ovarian or cervical cancer or leukaemia, according to research published on Friday in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.
That is about a sixth of the 36,000 deaths a year from lung cancer.
Prof Paul Cosford, Public Health England’s director for health protection and medical director, wood and coal-burning stoves used indoors are also a risk. “I would like a nice wood-burning stove and used to have one. But we can’t get away from the fact that we are producing air pollution by burning wood and coal in our houses.”