Obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes nearing epidemic levels
Listen /
Measuring blood pressure
New health data by the World Health Organization(WHO) shows a dramatic increase in chronic diseases such as obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes especially in the developing world.
WHO says one in three adults worldwide, has raised blood pressure, while one in ten adults has diabetes.
In its annual World Health Statistics report WHO says up to 50 per cent of adults in Africa have high blood pressure, with majority of them remaining undiagnosed.
The report says nearly a quarter of all adults in the Americas region are obese, with women more likely to be overweight than men, and thus at greater risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and some cancers.
Dr Ties Boerma is the Director of Health Statistics at WHO.
"Non-communicable diseases we have also highlighted this time, because we can clearly see that it is no longer just a problems of high income countries, but it also affects middle and low income countries. In fact 80 per cent of the deaths in the world due to non-communicable diseases are in lower and middle income countries. Hypertension is very common all around the world and it's only been declining in high income countries, elsewhere really no evidence of a decline. This report also highlights the obesity epidemic where 14 per cent on men and 10 per cent of women over the age of 20 years are considered to be obese, so we are talking about half a billion people."
Duration 46″
