GENEVA, Oct 30: Governments can improve the health of citizens worldwide and significantly raise life expectancy by tackling the top 10 health risks identified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in a report released Wednesday.

After three years of research, the WHO found for the first time that as many as 40 per cent of the 56 million deaths around the world every year are due to the 10 biggest risk factors.

The major risks to health worldwide include lack of food, unsafe sex, high blood pressure, smoking, alcohol, unsafe water or sanitation, high cholesterol, nutritional deficiencies such as lack of iron, and obesity.

Indoor smoke from cooking or heating fires, predominantly in Africa and the Indian subcontinent, is also in the top 10.

“The potential improvements in global health are much greater than generally realised — extra years of healthy life expectancy could be gained for populations in all countries within the next decade,” the report said.

The report, entitled “Reducing Risks, Promoting Healthy Life”, also tries to quantify the reasons for poor health.

“Although the report carries some ominous warnings, it also opens the door to a healthier future in all countries — if they’re prepared to act boldly now,” Christopher Murray, one of the authors of the report, said.

The WHO says that by reducing the top risks by about a quarter, people could on average expect to live 10 more years in perfect health, with even bigger gains to be made in poorer countries.

“These are massive gains and this report is a wake-up call to ministries of health to act now to reduce exposure so they can realise these gains,” Alan Lopez, the WHO’s senior science adviser, told reporters.

“Not only is poverty an underlying cause of many of these risk factors, but it’s also in the poorer groups of the population where most of the disease burden worldwide, not just in poor countries, is concentrated,” he added.

The list of top 10 risks in each region or country varies.

But worldwide, the WHO listed lack of food as the number one health risk, causing 3.4 million deaths in the world in 2000.

Unsafe sex ranked second with HIV infections and death from AIDS pushing the average life expectancy in the most affected areas of sub-Saharan Africa down to 47 compared to 62 elsewhere.

Some 170 million children in poor countries are underweight, because of lack of food, while more than one billion adults in North America, Europe and middle income countries are thought to be obese or overweight, according to WHO.

Lopez said that in emerging countries, mainly Asian states such as China and Thailand, the risks were much more diverse, ranging from lifestyle problems such as smoking or excessive cholesterol to lack of food.

“The leading cause of disease burden in this middle income group of countries is actually alcohol. This is a surprise to us,” Lopez said.

The report advocates “cost-effective” measures to tackle major health risks including improved clean water supply, action to reduce salt and fat in processed foods, curbs on smoking or tobacco taxes, or better HIV/AIDS prevention.

Lopez insisted that the focus on risk factors behind non-communicable illness would not affect the WHO’s parallel attempts to bring infectious diseases under control, especially in developing countries.—AFP