Heart disease remains the number 1 killer; diabetes and dementia are now among the top ten. It has remained the leading cause of death worldwide for the last 20 years. It is now killing more people than ever before.
Seven of the world’s top 10 causes of death are non-communicable diseases. 
In 2000, only four of the world’s top ten causes of death were non-communicable diseases. The new data comes from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 2019 Global Health Estimates published Dec. 9. The new numbers cover 2000 to 2019.
Heart disease remains the number 1 killer; diabetes and dementia are now among the top ten. It has remained the leading cause of death worldwide for the last 20 years. It is now killing more people than ever before.
The number of deaths from heart disease increased by more than 2 million since 2000, to nearly 9 million in 2019. Heart disease now represents 16 percent of total deaths from all causes. More than half of the 2 million additional deaths were in the Western Pacific region that includes the Philippines.
Conversely, the European region has seen a relative decline in heart disease, with deaths falling by 15 percent.
Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia are now the top ten causes of death worldwide, ranking third in both the Americas and Europe in 2019.
Women are disproportionally affected: globally, six in ten persons who die from Alzheimer’s and dementia are women.
Deaths caused by diabetes increased to 70 percent between 2000 and 2019 with an 80 percent rise in deaths among males.
In 2019, pneumonia and other lower respiratory infections were the deadliest group of communicable diseases and together ranked as the fourth leading cause of death.
However, compared to 2000, lower respiratory infections were claiming fewer lives than in the past, with the global number of deaths decreasing by nearly half a million.
This reduction is in line with a general global decline in the percentage of deaths caused by communicable diseases. For example, HIV/AIDS dropped from the eight leading causes of death in 2000 to No. 19 in 2019, reflecting the success of efforts to prevent infection, test for the virus, and treatment over the last two decades.
While it remains the fourth leading cause of death in Africa, the number of deaths related to HIV/AIDS has dropped by more than half, falling from over 1 million in 2000 to 435,000 in 2019.
Tuberculosis is no longer in the global top 10, falling from 7th place in 2000 to 13th in 2019, with a 30 percent reduction in global deaths. Yet, it remains among the top 10 causes of deaths in Africa and Southeast Asia where it is the 8th and 5th leading cause respectively.
The new WHO data also show that people are living longer – but with more disability.
The estimates show the growing trend for longevity: in 2019, people were living more than six years longer than in 2000, with a global average of more than 73 years in 2019 compared to nearly 67 in 2000.
But on average, only five of those additional years were lived in good health.
Indeed, disability is on the rise. To a large extent, the diseases and health conditions that are causing the most deaths are those that are responsible for the greatest number of healthy life-years lost.
Heart disease, diabetes, stroke, lung cancer, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were collectively responsible for nearly 100 million additional healthy life-years lost in 2019 compared to 2000.
Injuries are another major cause of disability and death. Globally, deaths from road traffic injuries are 75 percent male.
In the Americas, drug use has emerged as a significant contributor to both disability and death.
There was a nearly three-fold increase in deaths from drug use disorders in the Americas between 2000 and 2019. This region is also the only one for which drug use disorder is a top 10 contributor to healthy life-years lost due to premature deaths and disability, while in all other regions, drug use does not make the top 25./WDJ