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WHO: Heart disease and cancer are potent threats worldwide
by Joseph Earnest May 18, 2012
Newscast Media GENEVA— The most recent report from the World Health Organization (WHO) shows that cardiovascular disease and cancer are the leading causes of illnesses and death by noncommunicable diseases.
The report finds the leading causes of noncomminicable deaths arise from cardiovascular disease (48 percent), followed by cancers (21 percent ) and chronic respiratory diseases (12 percent). Diabetes is directly responsible for 3.5 percent of noncommunicable deaths.
Behavioral risk factors, including tobacco use, physical inactivity, unhealthy diet and the harmful use of alcohol, are estimated to be responsible for about 80 percent of coronary heart disease. It has been estimated that raised blood pressure causes 51 percent of stroke deaths and 45 percent of coronary heart disease deaths, the report shows.
More than two thirds of all cancer deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, with lung, breast, colorectal, stomach and liver cancers causing the majority of such deaths. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among women due to a high prevalence of infection with human papillomavirus. In high-income countries, the leading causes of cancer deaths are lung cancer among men and breast cancer among women.
Worldwide, 2.8 million people die each year as a resultof being overweight or obese. Being overweight or obese can lead to adverse metabolic effects on blood pressure, cholesterol and triglyceride levels, and can result in diabetes. Being overweight or obese thus increases the risks of coronary heart disease, ischaemic stroke, type 2 diabetes mellitus, and a number of common cancers, according to page 38 of the WHO report.
Between 1980 and 2008, the worldwide prevalence of obesity The prevalence of overweight and obese individuals was highest in the WHO Region of the Americas (62 percent overweight in both sexes, and 26 percent obese) and lowest in the WHO South-East Asia Region (14 percent overweight in both sexes and 3 percent obese).
In the WHO European Region, WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region and WHO Region of the Americas, over 50 percent of women were overweight. In all three regions, approximately half of these overweight women were obese (23 percent, 24 percent and 29 percent respectively), the report shows. Click here to read or download the 2012 WHO report. (pop-up)
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