In the United States, heart disease has traditionally topped the list as the leading cause of death for both men and women.
It is currently responsible for around 1 in 4 deaths. However, experts have been wondering when cancer will overtake it.
Now, a new study has found that cancer is fast becoming the leading cause of death in higher income countries.
This may seem like bad news, but the researchers behind the study — who investigated the occurrence of common conditions and causes of death in a wide spectrum of countries across the world — say that it is not necessarily so.
More specifically, they found that cancer now causes 55% of deaths among middle aged people in higher income countries, whereas heart disease causes just 23%.
The researchers, who have published their findings in The Lancet, say that this is due to improved efforts to prevent and treat heart disease in more prosperous countries.
"In some respects, this is a good news story," says co-lead study author Dr. Darryl Leong. "It suggests that efforts to treat blood pressure, cholesterol, and cardiovascular disease are meeting with some success."
Whether or not cancer rates are increasing is a complex question with no easy answer," Dr. Leong told Medical News Today. He heads the Cardio-Oncology Program at McMaster University and is affiliated with Hamilton Health Sciences in Canada.
"Different cancers have different patterns; cancer diagnosis rates depend in part on the use of screening tests in different populations; aging populations also affect the risk of developing cancer at a population level."
In their Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology study, Dr. Leong and colleagues set out to get an up-to-date understanding of which conditions are the most significant threats to middle aged adults across the globe.
The researchers conducted their study in 21 countries across five continents. The Population Health Research Institute of McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences headed up the project.
Over 9.5 years, the team followed 162,534 adults, ages 35–70, from:
high income Canada, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, and the United Arab Emirates
middle income Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Columbia, Iran, Malaysia, Palestine, the Philippines, Poland, Turkey, and South Africa
low income Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe
The researchers revealed that although heart disease is no longer the biggest killer in higher income countries, it remains the most common cause of death worldwide.
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