More than two million lazy Brits will face serious health problems in the next 20 years

MORE than two million people will have as many as four serious conditions in the next 20 years because they are lazy, a shock report has warned.

Health boffins have predicted that the increase in obesity and lazy lifestyles among middle-aged people means that in the coming years two thirds of over-65s will have at least two conditions, such as cancer, dementia or arthritis.

And experts are warning that this will put a further strain on the NHS.

Carol Jagger, professor of epidemiology of ageing at Newcastle University, warned that people were now reaching 65 with one more disease on average than those in the previous generation.

Professor Jagger, who studied the data on 300,000 over-35s, said: “It is primarily the lifestyle factors that are driving these diseases.

"Obesity and physical activity are the main ones. We are much more sedentary than we were before.”

Currently 45 per cent of those aged 65-74 have two or more conditions but this will rise to 53 per cent once those born in the 1960s reach this age.

In 2015, 10 per cent of over-65s in England had four or more illnesses. Professor Jagger estimates that this will rise to 17 per cent by 2035.

Niall Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation of health service leaders told The Times: “This is the defining social issue of our time. The NHS and social care services are not coping now, yet within 20 years they will have to cope with 2.5 million older people with four or more chronic illnesses.

“We need to decide what kind of services we want over the next decade and what as a society we are willing to pay for.”

NHS England said: “This study is further evidence of the need to integrate care, in the way the NHS is now beginning to do.”