What's the World's Greatest Health Risk?

World’s Biggest Killers: Diseases Associated With Rich Countries

Malaria, tuberculous and other contagious diseases often are thought of as the leading global health threats, but the biggest killers worldwide actually are chronic afflictions — including diabetes, cancer and heart disease — often associated with the more prosperous countries.

According to a new report from the World Health Organization, 63 percent, or 36 million, of the 57 million deaths around the world in 2008 were caused by chronic, noncommunicable diseases. The reason, the WHO says, has much to do with lifestyle. Smoking, drinking, lack of exercise and unhealthy eating habits all contribute to chronic disease.

The report reflects a decades-long trend: greater worldwide wealth and more sedentary lifestyles have made noncommunicable disease deaths more common, while medical and public health advances have given nations far more tools to deal with deadly contagious diseases. Public health agencies, including the WHO, have warned of the need to shift focus to chronic diseases since the 1990s.

Deaths from chronic diseases are the most common in every part of the world except Africa and, even there, the proportion of overall mortality stemming from noncommunicable diseases is on the rise.

Noncommunicable diseases are more likely to kill at an earlier age, though, in the less-wealthy nations. The WHO reports that 29 percent of noncommunicable disease deaths in low- and middle-income nations occur before the age of 60, while the corresponding figure in wealthy nations is just 13 percent.

The report said that a greater capacity to track chronic disease is essential, but laments that many countries lack the needed data and surveillance systems to do an adequate job.

“The rise of chronic noncommunicable diseases presents an enormous challenge,” WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan said in a news release. “For some countries, it is no exaggeration to describe the situation as an impending disaster; a disaster for health, for society, and most of all for national economies.”

http://www.fairwarning.org/2011/04/worlds-biggest-killers-diseases-associated-with-rich-countries/

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