Norihiro Shinkawa writes:

Problems of adults are different between in developing countries and in developed countries. In 1993 globally about 51 million people died, about three-quarters of them adults. Some 39 million deaths took place in developing countries and about 12 million in the developed. Communicable diseases such as tuberculosis and respiratory infections as well as maternal, perinatal and neonatal conditions account for about 20 million, 99% of these occur in developing countries.

In developed countries, people are interested in noncommunicable diseases such as cancer, circulatory system diseases, diabetes and so on. For example circulatory system diseases account for 10 million deaths globally, with more than 5 million due to heart diseases and another 4 millon due to cerebrovascular conditions. About 24% of world total deaths occur in the developed world, but about 56% of total deaths from noncommunicable diseases now occur there.

Cancer accounts for 6 million or 12% of deaths globally, and 42% of 6 million deaths occur in the developed world. Cancer occur variety tissue such as stomach,liver,colon,lung and so on. Especially, smoking has a relationship to lung cancer. Smoking kills an average of 3 million adults a year worldwide. If current trends continue, this figure is expected to reach 10 million by the year 2020.This problem is not personal, smoker, his/her families, friends, and so on. I think smoking and lung cancer are very important problems. Diabetes is also major noncommunicable diseases. This is categorized into 2 types. 85-90% of all diabetes are non-insulin dependent type and the other with insulin dependent type. One recent estimate put the cost of diabetes in the USA alone, both direct and indirect, at US $92 billion a year.

Most of noncommunicable diseases are related to personal life style. Thanks to developed medical practices, it is possible to discover and diagnos many of these diseases in early stages. In the future, we have to discover the gene that carry these diseases. What we can do to prevent these diseases is pay attention to own life styles such as food, sleeping, exercise, etc. In developed countries, people follow the life styles of developed world people, for example smoking, fast foods and so on. So noncommunicable diseases may rage through the developing world. In other words, developing world people may have diseases which we have never had. In fact, about half of worldwide deaths from cancer occur in the developing world. What we can do right now is to improve life style, to educate children or developing world people. We must educate children and developing world people, because if they have noncommunicable diseases, the next generation may have these diseases. Finally, our view is to prevent all noncommunicable diseases. Now most of the developed world people consider their own health, because of education by doctors, publications about health, TV programs about health, etc. Surely we must stop communicable diseases such as AIDS, tuberculosis, and at the same time, think about ways to deliver medical care and education to the developed countries.

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