'Macho' men at increased cancer death risk: Scottish study

London, January 23 (ANI): Men who feel they can never get cancer should rethink, as figures suggest otherwise.

It has been found in Scotland, men are 40 per cent more likely to die of cancer than females.

Mark Ward, national co-ordinator of the Men's Health Forum Scotland, insisted that men often neglect their health thinking nothing can harm them.

"There is a sense of toughness, an idea that they can 'handle it' or the perception that they are impervious to ill health. There is something particular about Scottish men that exacerbates the bad health effects," Scotsman quoted him as saying.

He added: "This 'Scottish effect' is something particular to the Scottish male psyche, but it is something that we can change over time."

Professor Alan White, the world's first professor of men's health, came up with the statistics to prove Ward's point in a seminar at Leeds Metropolitan University last month.

White briefed that men in Scotland are not only more likely to develop and die of those cancers that should affect men and women equally, but they have a 17 per cent higher cancer mortality rate than the UK average.

Also, he revealed that the country has the highest overall cancer mortality rate for females in the UK - 16 per cent higher than the British average.

Jane DeVille-Almond, an expert in men's health, said: "The further north you get the more macho men feel they need to be. As soon as you cross the northern borders the worse the problem gets." (ANI)