TEHRAN — Cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, and pulmonary diseases are four non-communicable diseases which will incur some $1 trillion loss to the world by 2025, an Iranian advisor to the World Health Organization has said.

Doctor Mohammad Reza Masjedi noted that “to limit the aforesaid costs we need to start educating the public from the childhood.”

“Two third of the premature deaths occur in middle-ages and it is directly linked to our habits during childhood,” Masjedi who is also professor of pulmonology and internal medicine at the Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences said, Tasnim news agency reported.

Unfortunately more than 150 million youngsters smoke, 81 percent lack enough physical movement, and more than 41 million children below five suffer from obesity or overweight globally, he regretted.

Their current unhealthy habits indicates that non-communicable diseases would be still a threat in the future, he added.

“And that’s why we have to try to educate the young generation about these threats using medias and also consider imposing higher taxes on unhealthy products such as cigarette, unhealthy beverages, salty and greasy foodstuff and spend the money on healthcare programs for the public,” he suggested.

Strokes and heart attacks in Iran above global average

Elsewhere, Reza Malekzadeh, deputy health minister, warned that the average age for strokes and heart attack is 10 years less than global average in Iran as some 95,000 die of the aforementioned diseases per annum. 

Out of 95,000 who die of heart attack and stroke some 35,000 are below 55 and 82 percent of the deaths reported in the country are caused by non-communicable disease, Malekzadeh regretted.

MQ/MG