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 Publishing the findings of two large studies in The Lancet medical
journal, the scientists said they showed evidence of a new global
"epidemiologic transition" between different types of chronic
disease.
While cardiovascular disease remains, for now, the leading cause of
mortality worldwide among middle-aged adults - accounting for 40% of
all deaths - that is no longer the case in high-income countries,
where cancer now kills twice as many people as heart disease, the
findings showed.
"Our report found cancer to be the second most common cause of death
globally in 2017, accounting for 26% of all deaths. But as (heart
disease) rates continue to fall, cancer could likely become the
leading cause of death worldwide, within just a few decades," said
Gilles Dagenais, a professor at Quebec's Laval University in Canada
who co-led the work.
Of an estimated 55 million deaths in the world in 2017, the
researchers said, around 17·7 million were due to cardiovascular
disease - a group of conditions that includes heart failure, angina,
heart attack and stroke.
Around 70% of all cardiovascular cases and deaths are due to
modifiable risks such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol,
diet, smoking and other lifestyle factors.
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In high-income countries, common treatment with cholesterol-lowering
statins and blood-pressure medicines have helped bring rates of
heart disease down dramatically in the past few decades.
Dagenais' team said their findings suggest that the higher rates of
heart-disease deaths in low-income countries may be mainly due to a
lower quality of healthcare.
The research found first hospitalization rates and heart disease
medication use were both substantially lower in poorer and
middle-income countries than in wealthy ones.
The research was part of the Prospective Urban and Rural
Epidemiologic (PURE) study, published in The Lancet and presented at
the ESC Congress in Paris.
Countries analyzed included Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada,
Chile, China, Colombia, India, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, Palestine,
Philippines, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sweden, Tanzania,
Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Zimbabwe.
(Reporting by Kate Kelland, editing by Gareth Jones)
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