(Mihika Basu/ Meaww.com) — Cancer is now the leading cause of death in high-income countries, which indicates a transition in the predominant causes of deaths in middle-age. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the primary cause of death among middle-aged adults across the world, but this is no longer the case in high-income countries, where cancer is now responsible for twice as many deaths as CVD, according to two reports from the Prospective Urban and Rural Epidemiologic (PURE) study.
Researchers say that as cardiovascular diseases (heart diseases, most common being heart attacks and strokes) reduce in many countries because of prevention and treatment, cancer deaths will likely become the leading cause of death globally in the future.
“The world is witnessing a new epidemiologic transition among the different categories of non-communicable diseases, with CVD no longer the leading cause of death in high-income countries. Our report found cancer to be the second most common cause of death globally in 2017, accounting for 26% of all deaths. But as CVD rates continue to fall, cancer could likely become the leading cause of death worldwide, within just a few decades,” says the lead author of the first study, Dr. Gilles Dagenais, emeritus professor at Laval University, Quebec, Canada. (…)