The Alzheimer's Research Trust has just released a report showing that dementia is now costing the UK economy twice as much as cancer.

The report reveals that for every £1 spent on dementia research, 12 times that sum goes to organisations and charities investigating cancer.

Addressing this unhealthy imbalance must be a priority particularly given that the numbers of people with dementia are much higher than thought.

There are now 821,884 people suffering from dementia, and they are costing the UK £23bn a year, the report says. The number of sufferers will exceed one million before 2025

Researchers from the Oxford University compared the cost of caring for a person with dementia to the cost of dealing with cancer, heart disease or stroke - the three main causes of death in the UK.

With nearly £600m a year, cancer research funding was 12 times that of the £50m devoted to dementia, while heart disease received three times as much. They calculated that for every person with cancer, £295 is spent on research, compared with just £61 for each person with dementia.

"Many of us know people who have had cancer or heart disease but have been successfully treated and survived, so there is a perception that something can be done, and that more research will allow even more to be done," says Alastair Gray, professor of health economics at the University of Oxford and author of the report.