Nervous system disorders, including diseases such as Alzheimer’s dementia, migraines or the consequences of stroke, have become the leading global cause of health problems, according to a large study whose results were published on Friday.
According to the study published by the journal “Lancet Neurology”, cardiovascular diseases, but those of a neurological nature in the broad sense, are no longer the most common among people who are still alive.
In 2021, 43 percent of the world’s population — or 3.4 billion people — had a neurological disorder, according to the study by hundreds of researchers sponsored by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a reference organization for health statistics.
This level far exceeds current estimates, and means that these disturbances have jumped by more than half since 1990.
Researchers attribute this, among other reasons, to the aging of the population, especially since the vast majority of neurological disorders cannot be treated and are therefore likely to persist for years until death.
However, this reality is also linked to a development in the classification of the World Health Organization, which now classifies strokes as a neurological disease and not a cardiovascular disease, which is the choice made by the study’s authors.
Among nervous system disorders, strokes cause the most disability and health problems. The study indicated that these diseases caused the total world population to lose 160 million years of healthy life – an indicator that goes beyond average life expectancy to take into account the real situation of people.
This is followed by neonatal encephalopathy, a form of disease that, as the name suggests, affects the child from birth, dementia of the Alzheimer’s type, and then the neurological consequences of diabetes. Meningitis and epilepsy occupy the next two ranks.
The neurological effects of Covid, which are particularly an aspect of long Covid, are ranked 20th.
In terms of deaths, neurological disorders claimed more than 11 million lives in 2021, according to the study.
This number is still lower than the tally of cardiovascular diseases – 19.8 million – which often kill more quickly.
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