High BP, diabetes and obesity fuelling poor health, early death worldwide — Study

NEW DELHI — Metabolism-related risk factors such as high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and high body mass index (BMI) are driving poor health and early death worldwide, according to a global study on Friday.

The latest findings from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2021, published today in The Lancet, presents comprehensive estimates of the disease burden of 88 risk factors and their associated health outcomes for 204 countries and territories from 1990 to 2021.

Between 2000 and 2021, researchers found an increase in people experiencing risk factors associated with metabolism, such as high systolic blood pressure (SBP), high fasting plasma glucose (FPG), high body mass index (BMI), high LDL or bad cholesterol, and kidney dysfunction.

This led to a 49.4 per cent increase in the number of global DALYs, or disability-adjusted life years (lost years of healthy life due to poor health and early death). The researchers demonstrated it as the consequence of an ageing population and changing lifestyles on a global scale.

Particulate matter air pollution, smoking, low birth weight, and short gestation were also among the largest contributors to DALYs in 2021, the researchers said.

 “Risk factors that currently lead to ill health, such as obesity and other components of metabolic syndrome, exposure to ambient particulate matter air pollution, and tobacco use, must be addressed via a combination of global health policy efforts and exposure reduction to mitigate health risks and improve population health,” said Dr Emmanuela Gakidou, Professor of Health Metrics Sciences at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) — an independent research organisation at the University of Washington (UW) in the US.

The study also found substantial progress between 2000 to 2021 in reducing the global burden of disease attributable to risk factors linked to maternal and child health; unsafe water, sanitation, and handwashing; and household air pollution from cooking with solid fuels.

Dr Greg Roth, Director of the Programme in Cardiovascular Health Metrics at IHME called for an “urgent need for interventions focused on obesity and metabolic syndromes.”