Healthy weight could prevent 22,000 cancer cases The new report was focused on pancreatic cancer, the fifth most deadly cancer for British patients with most sufferers having only a low chance of survival. "Fewer than one in five patients survive the first year after diagnosis but we have found that 15 per cent of new cases could be avoided every year by keeping body weight within the healthy range," Prof Jackson said. Britain is one of the heaviest countries in Europe when judged by Body Mass Index - an estimate based on a person's weight and their height. Researchers said 63 per cent of all Britons are either overweight, meaning they have a BMI higher than 25, or obese with a BMI over 30. Earlier this year the Nuffield Health charity warned that most women in Britain have an unhealthy "apple" figure which raises their risk of cancer, heart disease and infertility. The average woman's waistline is 5cm (2in) larger than the health recommendation of 80cm (31.5in) or less, putting the majority in the "high health risk" category, the survey of 54,000 people found. Dr Davina Deniszczyc of Nuffield Health said: "Experts are increasingly finding central or abdominal obesity, measured through waist size, to be a better indicator of obesity than BMI. The results for women highlight a worrying problem as fat being stored around the waist can contribute to significant health issues, such as breast cancer and infertility. However, separate studies have suggested that some overweight people are so physically fit that they are not prone to obesity-related health problems like diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer. Writing in the European Heart Journal last month, experts from Spain and Sweden reported that people who had "obese" levels of body fat despite but were otherwise fit healthy were 30 to 50 per cent less likely to die from heart disease or cancer than their unhealthy counterparts. Dr Francisco Ortega, who led the study, said: "It is well known that obesity is linked to a large number of chronic disease such as cardiovascular problems and cancer. However, there appears to be a subset of obese people who seem to be protected from obesity-related metabolic complications.