Cancer may become the leading cause of death by 2020

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) looked at data for the five leading causes of death (heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic lower respiratory diseases, and accidents) which together account for 63 percent of all deaths in the United States,. 

They used mortality data, population estimates and projections to estimate and predict heart disease and cancer deaths from 1969 through 2020.

The report indicates that fewer people died prematurely from cancer, stroke and heart disease between 2010 and 2014.

They predicted that from 1969 through 2020, the number of heart disease deaths would decrease 21.3% among men and 13.4% among women while the number of cancer deaths would increase 91.1% among men and 101.1% among women. They suggest that cancer would become the leading cause of death around 2016.

In 2014, more than 614,000 Americans died of heart disease and approximately 592,000 died of cancer that year.  However, in 2016, almost 601,000 Americans may die as a result of cancer, while more than 597,000 may die from heart disease.  Thus cancer could surpass heart disease as the leading cause of death among Americans this year, according to the report.

The authors conclude that the risk of death declined more steeply for heart disease than cancer over the past 4 decades. If current trends continue, cancer will become the leading cause of death by 2020.

Obesity linked to premature death

It is well known that being overweight can lead to health complications including diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer.

A recent study published in Lancet reports on a meta-analysis of 239 prospective studies published from 1970 to last year (median follow-up 13·7 years).  Of those 3 951 455 people in 189 studies were never-smokers without chronic diseases at recruitment who survived 5 years, of whom 385 879 died.   The investigators extracted their information from 10 625 411 participants in Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Europe, and North America.

They compared the risk of death to people's body mass index, or BMI, a measure of body fat that is calculated using height and weight.  They defined a BMI from 18.5 to 25 as normal, 25-30 as overweight, 30-35 as moderately obese and over 40 as severely obese.

In the study, the risk of dying before the age of 70 was 19 percent for men and 11 percent for women of normal weight.

But that risk jumped to 30 percent and 15 percent, respectively, for obese men and women.  The investigators found that overweight people die one year earlier than expected and that moderately obese people die up to three years prematurely.

The World Health Organization estimates that 1.3 billion adults worldwide are overweight, and 600 million more are obese. The associations of both overweight and obesity with higher all-cause mortality were broadly consistent in all four continents. As common diseases such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer have been strongly associated to obesity, strategies to combat it are needed all around the globe.