The World Health Organization (WHO) calls it an "invisible epidemic." In the United States and now many parts of the developing world, the biggest killers are no longer infectious diseases, such as HIV and AIDS or malaria, but rather chronic conditions, such as heart and lung disease, cancer, and diabetes. Often the preventable result of unhealthy diets, tobacco, and alcohol use and a lack of physical activity, these non-communicable diseases, or NCDs, now account for two out of every three deaths worldwide.
Most surprising, perhaps, is that NCDs have rapidly gone from afflictions of the developed world to afflictions of the developing world.
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