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28 Jan, 2014

Lifestyle disorders top health issues in Arab world – Arab News

PARIS: Heart disease and stroke have replaced infectious disease as the top causes of early death in the Arab world, tracking the West in a trend toward lifestyle disorders, The Lancet reported Monday.

An international consortium of scientists compared the state of health in the 22 countries of the Arab League in 1990 and in 2010, using data from a vast study — the 2010 Global Burden of Diseases report.

In 1990, respiratory infection headed the list of concerns, accounting for 11 percent of deaths, while stillbirths and poor nutrition also featured high on the mortality list. These problems still persist in the low-income countries of the Comoros, Djibouti, Mauritania, Somalia and Yemen, the investigators found.

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