Cancer cells
BY TAIWO FAROTIMI
That cancer is a killer disease is no news. Neither is the fact that it is among the first five top killer diseases in the world. What is new is that cancer is no longer comfortable in the middle position that coronary artery disease, stroke or chronic obstructive pulmonary have driven it to over the years. Researchers say the deadly disease is roaring to the top of the table.
Findings have therefore shown that cancer is on its way to displace heart disease and stroke that have ruled the killer diseases chat for 15 years. Between the two heart diseases they accounted for 15,2 million deaths from a total of 56.9 million recorded in 2016. Cancer, then the third world killer sent 1.7 million people to the grave.
But by the end of this year cancer would have killed 19.6 million people all over the world.
That is mo mean feat, particularly at a time that heart disease appears to have slowed down considerably. So far 9.6 million deaths have been recorded against cancer this year. Though three quarters of the year is almost gone, researchers believe that another 10 million people will succumb to the grinding effect of cancer. This is contained in a new report released Wednesday September 12 by the International agency for research on cancer, an arm of the World Health Organisation, WHO.
The researchers used data from 185 countries, exploring all places that could be susceptible to the disease in the body. At the end of the study they zeroed in on 36 types of cancer, but identified five very deadly ones. They are lung cancer, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, stomach cancer and liver cancer. They recognized lung cancer as the highest killer, accounting for 18.4% or 1.8 million death.
Researchers discovered that cancer is on the rise because there is an increase in world population, the population is aging, which is the factor that cancer feeds and life style of people some of who succumbed to cancer because of lack of self discipline, which gives room for obesity and indulgence in alcoholic beverage. Then it is overtaking those in the same line with it, thus having diseases like heart disease trailing behind. Now the researchers say that by the end of this century, cancer will be the number one killer in the whole world.