“NCDs take enormous toll on lives (33 million premature deaths worldwide and about 59 per cent premature deaths due to heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes and obesity). Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) account for at least 40 per cent of all deaths in developing countries and thus constitute a global health problem imposing additional economic and health burden on developing countries,” said Dr Prakash S Shetty at the 27th Gopalan Oration at Hyderabad.

Dr Prakash S Shetty, is the chief of nutrition planning, Assessment and Evaluation Service, Food and Nutrition Division of Food & Agriculture Division (FAO) of UN in Rome, Italy. The Gopalan Oration Award is given every year to an expert who has made significant contributions in the field of nutrition and allied sciences. The Nutrition Society of India in honour of the founder president, Dr C Gopalan, instituted the Gopalan Oration Award in the year 1974.

Dr Shetty says that food and nutrition are of fundamental importance in public health both in developed and developing societies. Nutritional issues are often perceived in developing societies as those relating to inadequate food or due to nutrient deficiency diseases. Now, however, diet and nutrition along with life-style changes are recognized as the principal environmental component affecting a wide range of diseases.

The emerging epidemic of NCDs is adding to the burden of malnutrition worldwide is no longer restricted to industrialized countries but are also increasing in developing countries. Thus in developing societies, caloric inadequacy and deficiency diseases continue to persist, but co-exist with the increasing presence of diet related chronic diseases, hence resulting in a ‘double burden’ of malnutrition.

Many of these NCDs are the result of changes in diet and life-style that accompany economic development, urbanization and globalization. However, it needs to be acknowledged that there are other significant contributors to this emerging epidemic. They include poverty, genetic or ethnic variations that increase their risk and vulnerability to chronic diseases with environmental changes, malnutrition and infectious diseases.

NCDs are largely preventable and require committed policies and targeted action by all stakeholders, public and private, national and international.

Presenting some relevant facts, Dr Shetty says- in developed countries, the problem of obesity is more prevalent than malnutrition. Developmental transition, nutritional transition, diets and life style changes, social inequalities, under-nutrition are the determinants of NCDs in developing societies.