U.S. Shares Bad Habits, Poor Health

Cancer deaths will double in many countries and heart diseases will soar worldwide over the next 25 years, the World Health Organization predicts, in part because of lethal habits spreading from the United States.

The rise in these diseases will be especially troublesome for developing countries already battling infectious diseases like tuberculosis and malaria, the WHO says in its annual report, being released Monday.

A big part of the cause of the increase, the report’s author said, is that the United States has helped sell cigarette smoking and a fatty diet to the world.

“We know what’s happening in these populations,” said David Brandling-Bennett, deputy director of the Pan American Health Organization, the WHO’s regional office here. “They are eating more calories, switching to fatty foods, living sedentary lifestyles and smoking.”

WHO scientists called on the United States to become a role model for a healthy lifestyle.

“Just as North America has exported negative aspects of its culture, we hope it will export positive aspects of its culture as well,” Brandling-Bennett said.

Of the 52 million deaths worldwide last year, the report said, more than 17 million were caused by infectious diseases, more than 15 million by heart disease, more than 6 million by cancer and about 3 million by respiratory diseases.

Smoking-related disease alone accounted for about 3 million deaths, the report said. In many countries, said Paul Kleihues, the WHO’s chief cancer researcher, smoking is seen as part of the acquisition of a western lifestyle.

Jan Smith, a spokeswoman for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, which makes Camel cigarettes, disputed the idea that the United States was at fault for spreading smoking.

“It is somewhat naive to leap to the conclusion that people in countries outside the U.S. did not smoke before U.S. tobacco companies entered those markets,” Smith said.

R.J. Reynolds’ domestic sales last year were $4.5 billion. Its international sales were $3.6 billion. Smith said the world cigarette market was growing at the rate of about 1 percent a year.

All this causes worry at the WHO, a Geneva-based nonprofit organization that works to improve health conditions around the world.

Among the report’s other findings:

The world’s population in mid1996 was 5.8 billion.

There are 10 people over 65 for every baby born in the developed world today; by 2020, there will be 15.

About 1.5 million people died of AIDS worldwide in 1996. Tuberculosis killed 3 million. Diarrheal diseases claimed 2.5 million. Malaria killed between 1.5 and 2.7 million people.

Accidents in the workplace cause some 120 million injuries and some 220,000 deaths.