WHO warns that eight million people will die from smokng by 2030

WHO has warned that the number of people who die from smoking is going to rise to a great extent in the coming years. At present, tobacco kills nearly six million people worldwide every year and, by 2030, this would increase to eight million.
The study also suggests that the global economy is losing at least $1tn every year because of the impact smoking has on productivity levels and health services. More than 80% of smoking deaths take place in low and middle-income countries - it is here that the number of smokers is on the rise.
This has been reported in news.sky.com dated 10 January 2017.

In the opinion of WHO, most governments are not using cheap and effective tools which can reduce tobacco use and save lives - a few examples are complete ban on tobacco marketing, prominent warning labels on cigarette packets and increasing the price.
Health experts believe that use of tobacco is a major health hazard and the single largest preventable cause of death worldwide.


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WHO wants governments to increase tax on sugary drinks to check obesity

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is keen to fight global obesity and have said that Governments should tax sugary drinks to fight the global epidemics of obesity and diabetes. In its opinion, a 20 per cent price increase could reduce consumption of sweet drinks by the same proportion.
That is the message of WHO on World Obesity Day.
This has been reported in telegraphindia.com dated 12 October 2016.

WHO has indicated that drinking fewer calorific sweet drinks is the best way to curb excessive weight and prevent chronic diseases such as diabetes. In addiction, fat and salt in processed foods are also at fault.
As per statistics, obesity has more than doubled worldwide between 1980 and 2014 and 11 per cent of men and 15 per cent of women are classified as obese. That works out to more than 500 million people. An estimated 42 million children under the age 5 were overweight or obese in 2015 - that is an increase of about 11 million over 15 years.
An example of what increase in tax can do Mexico. It had a tax rise in 2014 of 10 percent and it resulted in a 6 percent drop in purchases by year-end. In the opinion of WHO, people need to roughly halve the amount of sugar they consume in order to reduce risks of obesity and tooth decay.


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Delhi is 9th most polluted city in the world as per WHO

WHO has released details of polluted cities and India is home to four of the five cities in the world with the worst air pollution. While WHO experts admit that India faces a "huge challenge", there are many countries that are so bad that they have no monitoring system and, hence, are not included in its ranking.
This has been reported in news18.com dated 12 May 2016.

WHO has placed Zabol in Iran as the city with the dirtiest air - Zabol suffers from months of dust storms in the summer, and it recorded a so-called PM2.5 measure of 217. The next four cities are all Indian cities namely Gwalior, Allahabad, Patna and Raipur. At 9th place is New Delhi - measured by the amount of particulate matter under 2.5 micrograms found in every cubic metre of air, with an annual average PM2.5 measurement of 122.
These tiny particulate matter can lead to diseases like lung cancer, strokes and heart disease in the long term. Moreover, polluted and poor quality of air can result in health problems and trigger symptoms of heart attacks that kill more rapidly. As per WHO, more than 7 million premature deaths occur every year due to air pollution, and 3 million of them are due to poor quality of outdoor air. The ranking of New Delhi has improved when compared to 2014 because it has tried to tackle its toxic air by limiting the use of private cars on the road for short periods.
Common causes of air pollution are too many cars on the roads, especially diesel-fuelled vehicles, the heating and cooling of big buildings, waste management, agriculture and the use of coal or diesel generators for power.


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Obesity among Chinese kids is due to junk foods - findings of a 29-year-old survey

Obesity among Chinese kids is due to junk foods - these are the findings of a 29-year-old survey conducted on kids in China's eastern Shandong province. It has been revealed that 17 percent of boys younger than 19 were obese in 2014, and that of girls was nine percent - these are up from under one percent for both genders in 1985. Obviously, the researchers have raised the red flag hinting at an obesity explosion among children in rural China. This is attributed to a Western-style diet that is high in both sugar and carbohydrates.
This has been reported in timesofindia.indiatimes.com dated 27 April 2016.

The data is based on six government surveys of some 28,000 rural school children (aged 7-18) in Shandong. It is seen that the percentage of overweight boys had grown from 0.7 percent to 16.4 percent, and girls from 1.5 percent to nearly 14 percent. The study had used different measures of Body Mass Index (BMI) for overweight and obesity as compared to the World Health Organisation (WHO) standard.
The experts of Shandong Centre for Disease Control and Prevention have indicated that China has experienced rapid socioeconomic and nutritional changes in the past 30 years. In China, people have got into the habit of eating more and are, also, less physically active than they were in the past. Moreover, the traditional Chinese diet has changed to embrace one that is high in fat and calories and low in fiber. A caution has been sounded that the popularity of the Western lifestyle will cost lives because of an escalation of cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
In the opinion of WHO - being overweight brings about a major risk factor for heart disease apart from stroke, diabetes, and some cancers.


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WHO report - pollution highest in North Indian cities, lowest down South

#airpollution #WHO #mostpollutedcities According a report of WHO, the cities facing maximum pollution in India are located in the northern regions and cities in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan dominate the list. These states lie in the fog belt and air pollution is worsening the problem. Incidentally, it had been already reported that the average fog hours in the month of January in Delhi had increased by as much as eight hours since 1989 — this is a trend that can be attributed to rising pollution.
Delhi has earned the dubious tag of the most polluted city in the world. The breakup of polluted cities statewise is nine in UP, five in Punjab, four in Rajasthan. There were three cities each in the states of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and one city each in J&K, Bihar and Uttarakhand.
At the other end of the spectrum are five cities with the cleanest air – all of these are located in south India. Two of these were in Kerala - Kollam and Pathanamthitta, one in Karnataka - Hassan, one in Tamil Nadu - Madurai, and Pondicherry.
A total of 124 Indian data stations - mostly in cities – have been featured in the report of WHO.
A comparison between the cleanest and most polluted cities will reveal the extent of variation - Pathanamthitta, the cleanest city on the list, recorded a concentration of 10 parts per million of particles under 2.5 microns while in Delhi it was a concentration of 153 parts per million of such particles. This is more than fifteen times that of Pathanamthitta.
WHO relied on the concentration of particles in the air under 2.5 microns to determine how bad air pollution is because such tiny particles cause the most damage to health - when inhaled, they can go deep into the lungs, whereas larger particles are usually filtered out before they reach that far.