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The Top 10 Deadliest Diseases
Conditions such as heart disease, stroke, and respiratory infections account for the majority of deaths each year around the world. Some preventive measures may help lower your risk.
When people think of the deadliest diseases in the world, their minds probably jump to the fast-acting, incurable ones that grab headlines from time to time. However, many of these types of diseases don't rank in the top 10 causes of worldwide deaths.
An estimated 55.4 million people passed away worldwide in 2019, and 74% of these deaths were because of noncommunicable diseases, or chronic conditions that progress slowly.
Perhaps even more surprising is that several of the deadliest diseases are partially preventable. Non-preventable factors include where a person lives, access to preventive care, and quality of healthcare, all of which factor into risk.
But there are several steps that everyone can take to lower their risk.
Read on to see 10 of the deadliest diseases worldwide.
Also called ischemic heart disease, CAD occurs when the blood vessels that supply blood to the heart become narrowed. Untreated CAD can lead to chest pain, heart failure, and arrhythmias.
Impact of CAD across the world
Although it's still the leading cause of death, mortality rates have declined in many European countries and in the United States.
This may be because of better public health education, access to healthcare, and other forms of prevention. However, in many developing nations, mortality rates for CAD are on the rise.
An increasing life span, socioeconomic changes, and lifestyle risk factors play a role in this rise.
Risk factors and prevention
Talk with a doctor or healthcare professional if you have one or more of these risk factors.
You can prevent CAD with medications and by taking steps to improve heart health. Some of the ways you can decrease your risk include:
A stroke occurs when an artery in your brain is blocked or leaks. This causes the oxygen-deprived brain cells to begin dying within minutes.
During a stroke, you feel sudden numbness and confusion or have trouble walking and seeing. If left untreated, a stroke can cause long-term disability.
In fact, strokes are the leading cause of long-term disabilities. People who receive treatment within 3 hours of having a stroke are less likely to have disabilities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that one survey found that 93% of people knew sudden numbness on one side was a symptom of stroke. However, only 38% knew all the symptoms that would prompt them to look for emergency care.
Risk factors and prevention
Some risk factors of strokes can be lowered with preventive care, medications, and lifestyle changes. In general, good health habits can lower your risk.
Stroke prevention methods may include controlling high blood pressure with medications. You should also maintain a healthy lifestyle, complete with regular exercise and a balanced diet that's low in sodium.
If you smoke, consider quitting and drink only in moderation, as these activities increase your risk of stroke.
A lower respiratory infection is an infection in your airways and lungs. It can be due to:
Though viruses usually cause lower respiratory infections, they can also be caused by bacteria.
Coughing is the main symptom of a lower respiratory infection. It may produce blood sputum. You may also have a fever, sweating, or chills or experience breathlessness, wheezing, and a tight feeling in your chest.
Risk factors and prevention
Risk factors for lower respiratory infection include:
One of the best preventive measures you can take against lower respiratory infections is to get the flu shot every year. People at high risk of pneumonia can also get a vaccine.
Be sure to wash your hands regularly with soap and water to avoid transmitted bacteria, especially before touching your face or eating.
If you have a respiratory infection, stay at home and rest until you feel better, as rest improves healing.
In 2018, about 16.4 million people in the United States reported a diagnosis of any type of COPD.
Risk factors and prevention
There's no cure for COPD, but its progression can be slowed with medication.
The best ways to prevent COPD are to stop smoking, if applicable, and avoid secondhand smoke and other lung irritants. If you experience any COPD symptoms, getting treatment as soon as possible improves your outlook.
Respiratory cancers include cancers of the trachea, larynx, bronchus, and lungs.
The main causes are smoking, secondhand smoke, and environmental toxins. However, household pollutions, such as fuels and mold, also contribute.
Impact of respiratory cancers around the world
A 2015 study reports that there are around 18 million new cases of lung cancer annually. In developing countries, researchers project an 81% to 100% increase in respiratory cancers because of pollution and smoking.
Many Asian countries, especially India, still use coal for cooking. Solid fuel emissions account for 17% of lung cancer deaths in males and 22% in females.
Risk factors and prevention
Trachea, bronchus, and lung cancers can affect anyone, but they're most likely to affect those who have a history of smoking or tobacco use.
Other risk factors for these cancers include family history and exposure to environmental factors such as diesel fumes.
Aside from avoiding fumes and tobacco products, it isn't known if there's anything else that can be done to prevent lung cancers. However, routine lung scans and early detection can result in more effective treatment and an improved outlook.
In type 1 diabetes, the pancreas is unable to produce insulin. This type of diabetes is believed to be caused by an autoimmune reaction.
In type 2 diabetes, the pancreas doesn't produce enough insulin, or insulin can't be used effectively. Type 2 diabetes can be caused by a number of factors, including poor diet and physical inactivity.
Impact of diabetes around the world
Over time, uncontrolled diabetes can cause damage to the nerves and blood vessels. This can lead to complications such as impaired wound healing, kidney failure, and blindness.
People in low- and middle-income countries are more likely to die of complications from diabetes because of limited access to medications and technologies needed to manage blood sugar levels.
Risk factors and prevention
While diabetes isn't always preventable, you can control the severity of symptoms by exercising regularly and following a well-rounded, nutritious diet. Adding more fiber to your diet can also help with controlling blood sugar levels.
Alzheimer's disease is a progressive disease that destroys memory, interferes with decision making, and interrupts normal cognitive functions. These include thinking, reasoning, and other everyday behaviors.
Alzheimer's disease is the most common type of dementia and accounts for about 60 to 70% of cases.
The disease starts off by causing mild memory problems, difficulty recalling information, and slips in recollection. Over time, however, the disease progresses, and you may not have memory of large periods of time.
Risk factors and prevention
Risk factors for Alzheimer's disease include:
There's not currently a way to prevent Alzheimer's disease, and researchers aren't sure why some people develop it and others don't. As they work to understand this, they're also working to find preventive techniques.
One thing that may be helpful in lowering your risk of the disease is following a healthy diet. In fact, some research suggests that eating plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, heart-healthy fats, and legumes could support brain function and prevent cognitive decline.
Diarrhea is when you pass three or more loose stools in a day. If your diarrhea lasts more than a few days, your body loses too much water and salt. This causes dehydration, which can be fatal in severe cases.
Diarrhea is usually caused by an intestinal virus or bacteria transmitted through contaminated water or food. It's particularly widespread in areas with poor sanitary conditions.
Impact of diarrheal diseases around the world
Diarrheal disease is the second leading cause of death in children younger than 5 years old. About 525,000 children die from diarrheal diseases each year.
Risk factors and prevention
Risk factors for diarrheal diseases include:
The best method of prevention is practicing good hygiene. Handwashing, improved sanitization and water quality, and access to early medical treatment can also help prevent diarrheal diseases.
TB is a lung condition caused by bacteria called Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It's a treatable airborne bacterium, although some strains are resistant to conventional treatments.
TB is one of the top causes of death in people who have HIV. Furthermore, people who have HIV are 18 times more likely to develop active TB.
Impact of TB around the world
The cases of TB have fallen 2% each year between 2015 and 2020.
One of the targets of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals is to end the TB epidemic by 2030.
Risk factors and prevention
The best prevention against TB is to get the bacillus Calmette-Guerin vaccine, which is commonly given to infants and children in areas where TB is common.
If you think you've been exposed to TB bacteria, a doctor can prescribe preventive medications (chemoprophylaxis) to lower the likelihood of developing an active infection.
Cirrhosis is the result of chronic or long-term scarring and damage to the liver. The damage may be the result of a kidney disease, or it can be caused by conditions such as hepatitis, alcoholic liver disease, or nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.
A healthy liver filters harmful substances from your blood and sends healthy blood into your body. As substances damage the liver, scar tissue forms. As more scar tissue forms, the liver has to work harder to function properly and may eventually stop working.
Risk factors and prevention
Risk factors for cirrhosis include:
Moderating alcohol intake can help prevent liver damage and cirrhosis.
Likewise, you can prevent nonalcoholic fatty liver disease by enjoying a nutritious diet rich in fruits and vegetables and low in sugar and fat.
Lastly, you can lower the likelihood of contracting viral hepatitis by using barrier methods each time you engage in sexual activity and by avoiding sharing anything that could have traces of blood such as needles, razors, or toothbrushes.
How many rare diseases are there?
A rare disease is usually defined as a disease or condition that affects fewer than 200,000 people in the United States.
According to most scientists and clinicians, there are around 7,000 different rare diseases. However, this estimate can vary from 5,000 to 8,000 rare diseases, depending on the source.
It's believed that around 1 in 10 people in the United States, or around 30 million people in total, has a rare disease.
Some rare diseases are hereditary and can be passed from parent to child. Some may be visible from birth, while others might show up later in life.
Which disease has no cure?
There's no known cure for many conditions, including several on the list of the deadliest diseases.
In many cases, certain lifestyle factors, such as smoking cessation and modifying your diet or exercise routine, may lower the risk of developing some of these conditions.
In other cases, a combination of lifestyle changes, medications, and other treatment methods might help manage or reduce symptoms of a condition, though it may not necessarily cure it.
What's the deadliest disease?
Ischemic heart disease is the leading cause of death around the globe. Other conditions, such as stroke, COPD, lower respiratory infections, and respiratory cancers, also account for a significant portion of deaths each year.
While deaths from certain diseases have increased, those from more serious conditions have also decreased.
Several factors, such as an increasing life span, naturally increase the prevalence of age-related diseases such as CAD, stroke, and heart disease.
However, many of the diseases on this list are preventable and treatable, and as medicine continues to advance and prevention education grows, we may see improved outcomes for many of these diseases.
A good approach to lowering your risk of any of these conditions is to follow a balanced diet, live a healthy lifestyle, and stay active.
Moderating your alcohol intake and quitting smoking, if applicable, can also help.
For bacterial or viral infections, proper handwashing can help prevent or lower your risk.
How To Fight Lyme May Lie In The Biology Of Its Disease-causing Bacteria
Not all cell walls are created equal. Take the peculiar makeup of the Borrelia burgdorferi bacterium's cell wall. It might play a role in lingering symptoms of Lyme disease — the most common tick-borne infection in the United States. That makeup might also be key to developing new treatments for the disease, researchers report in two studies published April 23 in Science Translational Medicine.
Somewhere between 90,000 and nearly 500,000 people are diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease each year in the United States. About 15 percent of those people continue to experience symptoms including fatigue, body aches and memory problems even after the acute phase of the disease is treated — a condition called Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome, or PTLDS. However scientists aren't sure what causes the lingering symptoms of PTLDS once antibiotics have killed the living bacteria inside the body.
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In a previous study, microbiologist Brandon Jutras found that patients with post-infectious Lyme arthritis, a late-stage form of Lyme disease, still have bacterial cell wall fragments called peptidoglycans in the fluid between their joints, even after treatment. This mesh-like skeleton is made of sugars and amino acids, seldom-seen components that can influence the responses of the body's immune system. Experiments had also shown differences in the amino acids and sugars making up B. Burgdorferi's peptidoglycans compared with other bacteria.
"That was kind of the impetus of the study, to figure out if the chemical components of the peptidoglycan were important in the persistence" of the disease, says Jutras of Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.
In one of the new studies, Jutras and his colleagues found that in mice with Lyme arthritis, B. Burgdorferi's peptidoglycan fragments accumulated in the liver where they can linger for weeks or months.
"Something is being left behind that is continuing to elicit an immune response," says study coauthor Mecaila McClune, a biochemist also at Northwestern.
This immune response is similar to what is seen in patients with long COVID, the researchers wrote, which may also be triggered by viral fragments left behind after the main infection is gone.
In the second paper, the team reports the effects of an antibiotic that interferes with the peptidoglycan as the cell is trying to divide and replicate, meaning it can stop a new infection in its tracks.
The antibiotic is piperacillin, a relative of penicillin, and a low dose of it effectively treats Lyme disease caused by B. Burgdorferi in mice. Jutras says his team screened approximately 500 molecules to find one that could stop the growth of the bacterium — "and piperacillin did just that."
A new treatment for Lyme disease is important because the current gold standard treatment, doxycycline, fails in 10 to 20 percent of cases and can have harsh side effects on the gut microbiome.
Jutras hopes that one day piperacillin, which is already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for human use in infections such as pneumonia, can be given to people at their primary care doctor's office as a preventive against Lyme disease. "We're really excited about the idea of using this directly after a tick bite for high-risk people," he says.
But unlike doxycycline, which is a pill, piperacillin is delivered via injection. This might make piperacillin less useful, since many patients avoid taking shots, says Justin Radolf, a pediatrician at UConn Health in Farmington who was not involved in the research.
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Still, the research used innovative technologies to highlight important and previously poorly understood parts of the bacterium's biology, Radolf says. "People now are beginning to realize that understanding Lyme disease requires that we really understand the bacterium and what makes it different from many other bacteria that cause disease."
'Rabbit Fever' Cases Rising In US As CDC Warns Of Zoonotic Bacterial Disease
Cases of tularemia, also known as "rabbit fever," are on the rise in the U.S., according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Caused by the bacteria Francisella tularensis, the disease commonly infects rabbits, hares and rodents.
However, it is zoonotic, which means it can spread from animals to humans.
The bacteria is a "tier-1 select agent," a classification given to agents and toxins that "present the greatest risk of deliberate misuse with significant potential for mass casualties or devastating effects to the economy, critical infrastructure or public confidence, and pose a severe threat to public health and safety," per the CDC.
Although tularemia is relatively rare, with only 2,462 diagnoses between 2011 and 2022, cases have risen 56% compared to the prior decade (2001 to 2010), as reported in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
"Increased reporting of probable cases might be associated with an actual increase in human infection, improved tularemia detection or both," the report states.
Daniel Ruderfer, M.D., chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Hackensack Meridian K. Hovnanian Children's Hospital in New Jersey, believes that the increase in cases is mostly due to improved microbiology detection methods.
"The traditional method of confirming cases has historically been via growth in culture and antibody testing," he told Fox News Digital.
"However, newer detection methods, such as PCR testing, are likely a major contributor to the increase in reported cases."
The disease, also known as "rabbit fever," is caused by the bacteria Francisella tularensis, mainly affecting rabbits, hares and rodents. Bennytrapp – stock.Adobe.ComHumans can contract the disease through bites from deer flies or ticks, contact with infected animals, or exposure to contaminated water or aerosols, the same source stated.
Symptoms of tularemia can vary depending on the type of disease.
General symptoms include chills, headache, malaise, fatigue, anorexia, myalgia, chest discomfort, cough, severe sore throat, vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal pain, according to Ruderfer.
"Depending on the location of the infected bit or scratch, people can develop localized lymphadenopathy (enlarged lymph nodes) and a cutaneous ulcer at the infection site," he said.
This type of fever however is zoonotic, which means it can spread from animals to humans. Ondreicka – stock.Adobe.Com"Other manifestations include conjuctivitis, pneumonia and potentially even bloodstream infections."
The death rate from the disease is typically low, less than 2%, but the CDC noted that it can be as high as 24% in rare, severe cases.
Tularemia can be treated with antibiotics, but no vaccine is currently available.
"The infection is absolutely dangerous and potentially life-threatening if not treated with appropriate antibiotics," said Ruderfer.
Those most at risk include children between 5 and 9 years of age, older men, American Indian and Alaskan Native people, and those living in central U.S. States, according to the report.
The general population is not at an "obvious" risk for infection unless they come into physical contact with an infected rabbit, tick or deer fly, the expert noted.
Those who hunt or interact routinely with rabbits should see a doctor if they develop any concerning symptoms, he advised.
"Many factors might contribute to the higher risk for tularemia in this population, including the concentration of Native American reservations in central states and sociocultural or occupational activities that might increase contact with infected wildlife or arthropods," the CDC wrote.
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