By 2010, cancer will be the number one killer in the world
By 2010, cancer will become the leading cause of human deaths, leaving far behind cardiovascular diseases, AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. This is stated in the "Cancer Report for 2008", which was published on December 9 by the World Health Organization (WHO), according to Reuters.
Last year, about 12 million new cases of cancer were recorded in the world, and 7.6 million people died from this incurable disease. Moreover, 4.7 million deaths occurred in developing countries. Oncologists explain the increase in the incidence of cancer in these states by the commitment of its population to a Western lifestyle, including smoking, the "globalization" of fast food and a low degree of physical activity. As a rule, such countries do not have sufficient resources to cope with a sharp increase in the number of patients.
For example, recently a sharp increase in the incidence of cancer has been observed in the most populated countries of the world — India and China. 40% of all smokers of the planet live in these countries, industry is developing rapidly there and the environment is deteriorating, but at the same time expensive methods of cancer diagnosis and treatment are not available to the majority of the population. In developed countries such as the United States, in recent years, the number of detected cases of cancer and mortality from this disease, on the contrary, has decreased. Doctors see the reason for this state of affairs in regular preventive examinations of the mammary glands and rectum, as well as in reducing the number of smokers and improving cancer treatment methods.
The 2008 Cancer Report also claims that cancer is currently the cause of every eighth death in the world. More people are dying from cancer now than from AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. The main risk factors for cancer are smoking, prolonged exposure to direct sunlight, insufficient physical activity and obesity.
According to experts, quitting smoking is the basis for reducing the risk of developing cancer. However, approximately 1.3 billion people are currently smokers, and their number is growing in developing countries. Therefore, in the next few years, we should expect an increase in the scope of lung and breast cancer by 5 percent annually.
According to WHO estimates, in a year there will be 27 million cancer patients in the world, and by 2030, 26.4 million new cases of cancer will be detected annually, and 17 million people will die from this terrible diagnosis. Thus, WHO has changed its previous forecasts, and not for the better.
We remind you that according to earlier assumptions, the number of new cancer cases was expected to grow from 11.3 million in 2007 to 15.5 million in 2030.
The most significant increase in cancer rates is expected to occur in China, Russia and India with an annual increase of one percent. Experts also note that in Japan, Singapore and Korea, breast cancer rates have doubled or tripled over the past 40 years; in China, these rates have increased by 20-30 percent. In Africa in 2008, 667 thousand people got cancer and another 518 thousand died from this diagnosis.