Conditions that affect the nervous system, such as strokes, migraines and dementia, have soared to surpass heart disease and become the leading cause of illness worldwide, a major new analysis revealed on Friday. It was done.

More than 3.4 billion people (43% of the world’s population) will experience a neurological disease in 2021, an analysis found, far more than previously thought.

The study was conducted by hundreds of researchers led by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), a US-based institute that serves as the global standard for health statistics.

The study’s lead author, Jamie Steinmetz from IHME, said the results show that neurological conditions are now “the leading global cause of overall disease burden”.

Cases of these conditions have surged 59% over the past 30 years, she said, and the main cause of that increase is the aging and rapid growth of the world’s population.

Researchers looked at how 37 different neurological conditions affected disease, disability and premature death in 204 countries and territories from 1990 to 2021.

This data was used to estimate how many healthy years of life are lost due to each disease, called disability-adjusted life years (DALYs).

In 2021, more than 443 million years of healthy life will be lost to neurological diseases around the world, an 18% increase compared to 1990, a study has found.

However, when adjusting for the age and growing size of the population, DALYs and deaths from these conditions actually decreased by about a third, the researchers said.

Stroke, previously counted as a heart disease, is by far the worst neurological condition analyzed, accounting for 160 million years of healthy life lost.

Then came neonatal encephalopathy, migraines, dementia including Alzheimer’s disease, nerve damage from diabetes, meningitis, and a type of brain damage called epilepsy.

Cognitive impairment due to the new coronavirus infection ranked 20th.

Steinmetz told AFP that the main reason why neurological symptoms outperformed cardiovascular diseases in the latest analysis was that recent World Health Organization classification changes moved stroke into the neurological category. .

Huge numbers of healthy years are lost to these conditions, in part because children under the age of five can die, and these traumas at birth can lead to neonatal encephalopathy, asphyxia, or meningitis. She said it’s about connecting.

“This contributes significantly to years of life lost because death occurs at a young age,” she added.

Research has found that children account for nearly one-fifth of healthy years lost.

“It’s growing very fast.”

More than 11 million people died from 37 neurological conditions in 2021, according to a study published in The Lancet Neurology.

However, the IHME announced last year that cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death, accounting for 19.8 million deaths worldwide in 2022.

The most common neurological disorders were tension headaches and migraines.

The fastest growing condition was nerve damage called diabetic neuropathy due to the rapidly increasing number of people with diabetes.

There is no cure for most of these symptoms.

But there are ways to reduce risk, including reducing high blood pressure, diabetes and alcohol consumption, the researchers said.

They called for more to be done to prevent, treat and rehabilitate the disease, which disproportionately affects poorer countries.

Study co-author Valerie Fagin warned that “the global neurological burden is growing very rapidly and will put further pressure on health systems in the coming decades.”

© Agence France-Presse