Diabetes, Alzheimer's and kidney diseases enter the list of 10 pathologies that cause the most deaths in the world

Of the 55.4 million deaths that occurred in 2019 in the world, more than half (55%) are due to 10 pathologies or factors, according to the latest report from the World Health Organization (WHO).

The first two causes have not changed in 20 years, and they are cardiovascular diseases (ischemia or heart attacks).

Not only that: they have increased their weight.

Ischemic heart disease is responsible for 16% of worldwide deaths;

They are, in total, 8.9 million, two more than in 2020. Kidney ailments (tenth), Alzheimer's and other mental illnesses (seventh) and diabetes (ninth), and compared to 20 years ago , HIV / AIDS and tuberculosis and traffic accidents are out.

Pulmonary obstruction (COPD, goes from fourth to third), respiratory infections (they go down from third to fourth), neonatal problems (from eighth to fifth), cancer of the lung, trachea or bronchi (it is the sixth; 20 years was the ninth) and diarrhea (it goes from fifth to eighth).

This is information prepared with the best available evidence, Samira Asma, from the WHO Data Division, said in the presentation on Wednesday.

In general, it is observed that the impact of infectious diseases (communicable) decreases, and the others (cancer, diabetes) rise.

Asthma has highlighted that in the most important novelty, dementias, women represent 65% of cases, and that diabetes has increased 70% in 20 years.

The infectious diseases that remain on the list, such as diarrhea, decrease: they have gone from 2.6 to 1.5 million deaths between 2000 and 2019.

Another WHO analyst, Bochen Cao, has stressed that since it was information from last year, the covid was not included, but has said that taking into account that the coronavirus has already caused 1.5 million deaths, it would be around seventh place of the list.

The report also breaks down the list of the 10 diseases that cause the most deaths by the economic level of the countries.

Thus, in the poorest the first are neonatal complications (many of infectious origin), and malaria, HIV and tuberculosis appear on a list with the majority of pathologies caused by pathogens.

In middle-income countries, deaths from cardiovascular problems are already the most frequent, and tuberculosis, traffic accidents and liver cirrhosis are also on the list.

In the list of rich countries, only one infection, respiratory, appears on the list, while problems in pregnancy and childbirth do not appear and there are, on the other hand, another cancer, stomach cancer, and hypertension.

For the president of the Spanish Society of Cardiology, Ángel Cequier, the dubious honor of being at the top of the list has a reading that can be positive.

"The longer we live, the more we die of cardiovascular disease," he says.

"The two leading causes of death in Spain, cancer and cardiovascular disease, go more or more hand in hand until the age of 70, but from that age mortality from heart problems increases a lot," he says.

This interpretation is supported because in the poorest countries other causes of death are more frequent.

“In poor countries, people die earlier from other causes.

Cardiovascular diseases appear later, with increasing quality and life expectancy.

Somehow it could be said that something must be died, and those who die later or do the heart.

Daniel Gallego, president of the Association for the Fight against Kidney Disease (Alcer), also makes a double reading of the rise of these pathologies in the sad classification.

"People are going to be aware of this true silent killer," he says.

Furthermore, "we knew that this was going to happen because they have ignored us: 10% of the population has kidney disease, and it is increasing for two clear reasons," says Gallego: "On the one hand, it is known that with aging kidney function is declining, and on the other hand we have a lifestyle and a diet that does not help, with obesity, high blood pressure, the consumption of many processed foods and many harmful habits (tobacco, alcohol, sedentary lifestyle, poor sleep ...) ”.

Closely related to kidney disease is diabetes, which also makes the list.

"It is the leading cause of kidney disease," explains Gallego.

The entry in the list of the 10 most frequent of Alzheimer's and other dementias, which in 2020 was the 14th cause of death and is now the seventh, highlights “the enormous impact that neurological diseases have around the world. At the global level, stroke continues as the second cause of mortality, being responsible for 11% of deaths in the world. And, as expected, due to the progressive aging of the population, there has been an increase in deaths from Alzheimer's and other dementias ”, says Pablo Eguia, member of the Spanish Neurology Society (SEN), who emphasizes that among the rich countries - where Spain would enter - "have become the second leading cause of death." “In Spain, 800,000 people currently suffer from Alzheimer's. As a consequence of the aging of the population, in the next 20 years, the prevalence is expected to double, ”says Eguia. “Although age is the first and most important risk marker, factors such as high blood pressure, hypercholesterolemia, obesity, sedentary lifestyle, smoking or diabetes also play a role. And, unlike age, all these are risk factors that are modifiable ”, he points out.