Movember: "Your zany facial hair may not cure other people's cancer", warn experts

Scientists have stunned hipster students everywhere by revealing there is no causal link between growing an amusing moustache and slowing the spread of cancerous cells in others.

The shock revelation comes on the eve of Movember, a month-long celebration of the right of young men to look a bit wacky while ostensibly raising awareness of a range of health conditions.

A team of scientists from the University of Bristol spent a week walking around Clifton, where 93% of men under 25 already have comical facial hair and the remaining 7% are set to follow suit during Movember. 

The team discovered that cancer rates in Clifton are just as high as they are in Bridgwater, Somerset, where by-laws have prohibited the growing of even small amounts of trendy designer stubble since 1993. 

The Ugly Truth spoke to students in Clifton to gauge their reaction. 

Byron Vista-Broad, a 21-year-old Existential Relativism undergraduate, said: "It's disappointing. All my friends had convinced me that by looking a tiny bit like Poirot, I was somehow helping to slow the spread of cancerous cells into the lymphatic systems of many thousands of men. To learn that this may not be the case is really deflating."

Gulliver Nash, a 19-year-old student of Postmodern Aerobics, said: "I'd been told that the more ironic your facial hair, the more effective it was at destroying cancer cells, hence my incredibly tongue-in-cheek horseshoe moustache.

"If it's not actually doing the trick, I'll probably have to get a tattoo of an eagle instead, as I've heard that's a proven cure for other people's Muscular Dystrophy."

Others were less concerned, however. 

Ignatius Lattimer, 22, who is about to complete his MA in Egyptian Gastronomy, said: "For me, raising awareness of cancer is even more important than finding a cure. Because once you are aware of something, you can do something about it if that makes sense. It's no use having a cure for cancer if you don't have that awareness of why you've done it."  

Zeus Finlay-Finlayson, a 19-year-old Cosmic Anthropology undergraduate, agreed. He said: "I've done Movember for the past three years and I've probably raised more awareness than you could fit in my local artisan bakery, which is a lot of awareness. In fact, I'm not convinced anybody had even heard of cancer until I started shaving weird little crop circles in my beard when I was a sixth former."