By Cheryl Pellerin :Washington ? Cancer, a general term for at least 200 different diseases, is one of the leading causes of death around the world. Every year on February 4, World Cancer Day encourages prevention, diagnosis and treatment.
In 2009, children are a focus of the International Union Against Cancer (UICC, from its French acronym), a nonprofit global consortium of 333 member organizations in 104 countries. UICC organized the first World Cancer Day in 2006.
On World Cancer Day 2009, with the World Health Organization (WHO), UICC is launching “I Love My Healthy Active Childhood,” a yearlong campaign during which the organization will work with parents, teachers and decision makers worldwide to encourage kids to eat a healthy diet, be physically active and maintain a healthy body weight.
Being overweight or obese is shown to increase the risk of cancer among adults, and the prevalence of overweight and obesity is rising dramatically among adults and children. According to WHO, 1 billion adults are overweight and at least 300 million of them are clinically obese.
The International Obesity Taskforce estimates that one of every 10 school-age children is overweight. Of these, 30 million to 45 million children ? 2 percent to 3 percent of children ages 5 to 17? are obese.
“The costs of this disease in terms of human life and economic impact are devastating,” Dr. Anna Barker, deputy director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health and a UICC member, told America.gov. “We’ve got to mitigate cancer in every country around the world. To do that we’re going to have to work together.”
SILENT EPIDEMIC
Despite the focus on children, cancer is primarily a disease of aging populations. Cancer incidence rises dramatically with age, according to WHO, most likely as the result of a buildup of risks for specific cancers that increase with age. Most cancers occur in people older than age 65.
Aging populations are an issue in the developed world and increasingly in the developing world, Barker said. In countries like Japan and the United States, baby boomers ? the generation born between 1946 and 1964, according to the U.S. Census Bureau ? are moving into that age range in large numbers. (See “Global Causes of Death Move from Infectious to Chronic Diseases.”)
“We’re all going to see some dramatic increases in cancer in as little as 10 years,” she said. “In 20 years it will be quite dramatic around the world.”
Globally, cancer deaths will increase from 7.4 million in 2004 to 11.8 million in 2030, according to World Health Statistics 2008, published in May 2008 and presenting the most recent health statistics for 193 WHO member states on 73 health indicators. Source : America Gov