Geneva, 14 sep (EFE).-non-communicable, such as cardiovascular or respiratory diseases, are the main cause of death worldwide, accounting for 63% of the 57 million total deaths recorded in 2008, according to a report by the World Health Organization (who).
“The majority of these 36 million deaths due to cardiovascular or respiratory diseases, diabetes, or cancer,” said the head of the Department of chronic diseases and health promotion of the who, Leanne Riley, in the presentation in Geneva of the report, which contains the profile of the 193 countries members of the who in relation to these diseases.
Cardiovascular diseases were responsible for 48% of these deaths, cancer 21%, respiratory problems from 12% and 3% diabetes.
Riley explained that the reason why these diseases are the leading cause of mortality in the world is because in the last thirty years has imposed a much more sedentary lifestyle and changes in the diet, in which predominate the sugars, saturated fats and salt, which causes health problems such as cholesterol, high pressure and high levels of sugar in blood
“Has doubled the average body mass index in the majority of countries in just thirty years and cases of overweight have grown considerably,” pointed out.
Of the total of deaths from non-communicable diseases, 9 million occurred in less than 60 years and 90% of these premature deaths occurred in low income countries, where people have up to three times as likely to die less than sixty years.
As explained above, in developing such diseases tend to detect later and treatments are not always accessible to everyone, which is why the hardest tend to be the poorest of the population.
“This percentage of deaths before the 1960s also implies the loss of adults of working age, i.e., of productive force for the country”, pointed out.
The director of the anti-tobacco initiative of Douglas Betcher, who explained that the incidence of these diseases is also a serious economic problem, as countries spend billions of dollars in treatments against noncommunicable diseases.
For this reason, Betcher assured that these diseases are one of the greatest threats to the global economy and financial security by what it considered “urgent” to move forward in the prevention of these diseases, most of which are avoided changing bad habits.
“The countries that have more invested in prevention programmes and awareness-raising campaigns among the population are the best results obtained in aspects such as reducing cholesterol or tension among the population”, stated, for its part, Riley, who highlighted the case of Finland, as one of the countries that have reduced the impact of diseases cardiovascular.
With regard to tobacco, Betcher highlighted the major achievements of the campaigns undertaken in countries such as Turkey and Uruguay, in which the prevalence of tobacco was reduced up to 25% between 2006 and 2009.
Stressed the importance that of low-income countries to conduct prevention campaigns among the population, they are cheap, and eventually save millions of dollars in treatments doctors.
“Now the largest consumers of tobacco and junk food are countries poorer, because these products companies now focus on those markets, less regulated and where there is not much awareness about its dangers,” explained.
However, is not only changing habits, in poorer countries, often it is much cheaper to eat junk food, with high content of salt and saturated fat, which buy fruits and vegetables in markets, added the head of the who. EFE
