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QuoteCHRONIC DISEASES ARE SPREADING IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Posted by Christopher, on 23/05/2012
Chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease are increasingly common in developing countries, when they were once thought to be confined to developed nations.
Health data released Wednesday provide evidence of the spread of chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease from developed nations to poorer regions such as Africa as lifestyles and diets change in those areas. Data published by the World Health Organization (WHO) show that one in three adults worldwide has increased blood pressure, which is the cause of almost half of all deaths from heart disease, and this problem affects almost half of the adult population in some African countries.
In its annual World Health Report, the WHO also reported that one in 10 adults worldwide has diabetes, a disease that costs billions of dollars to treat and increases the risk of heart disease, kidney failure and blindness. While the average global prevalence of diabetes is about 10%, according to the report, up to one-third of the population in some Pacific Island countries have the disease.
Chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer are often seen as diseases that primarily affect individuals in wealthy nations, where fatty diets, alcohol consumption and cigarettes are the main health risks.
But the WHO has stated that almost 80% of deaths from these chronic diseases may occur in low- and middle-income countries.
In Africa, the increase in the number of smokers, the shift to a more Western diet, and the decrease in time spent exercising are causing chronic diseases to rise rapidly, and they are expected to soon become the leading contributors to death on the continent by 2020.
"This report is further evidence of the dramatic growth in conditions that cause heart disease and other chronic diseases, especially in low- and middle-income countries," WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said in a statement accompanying the report.
"In some African countries, nearly half of the adult population has high blood pressure."
The 2012 WHO statistical report is the first to include data from all 194 United Nations member countries on the percentage of men and women with high blood pressure or hypertension, and with high blood sugar levels, a symptom of diabetes. This report does not examine the causes of the increase or decrease in statistics but seeks to provide an overview of the major diseases and health risks affecting the world's population. In wealthy countries, increased diagnosis and treatment have significantly reduced the incidence of hypertension in the population, and this has contributed to a decrease in deaths from heart disease, according to the WHO.
But in Africa, more than 40% or even 50% of adults in many countries have high blood pressure. A large majority of these people are undiagnosed, according to the report, yet many of them could be treated with inexpensive drugs that would reduce the risk of death and disability from heart disease.
Obesity is another major problem, according to the WHO, with data showing that obesity rates doubled in all regions of the world between 1980 and 2008. "Today, half a billion people, or 12% of the world's population, are considered obese," said Ties Boerma, director of WHO's Department of Information Systems and Statistics.
The highest rates of obesity are found in the Americas, where 26% of adults are obese, and the lowest in Asia, where only 3% of the population is obese. The report also shows that women worldwide are more likely to be obese than men, and thus have a higher risk of diabetes, heart disease and certain cancers.
