Chronic disease reaches 4 in every 10 Brazilians

Notícia publicada em:

  • 11 de Dezembro de 2014

Four out of every 10 Brazilians have at least one chronic disease, non-transferable set of diseases which accounts for more than 70 of the causes of deaths in Brazil. They are diseases such as hypertension, heart related, cancer, diabetes and depression. This is the diagnosis of the 2013 National Health Research, published yesterday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).

Of 146.3 million Brazilians with more than 18 years, 57.5 million replied that suffer from at least one of these diseases. They are associated with unhealthy habits, such as abusive consumption of alcohol, food low in fruits, vegetables, sedentariness, little exercise and smoking – a pattern of behavior that also appears in the search.

“We have had a very impactful information, that we made the demographic transition (the population aged), but we did the epidemiological transition: over 73% of deaths are from non-infectious diseases, the so called non-communicable chronic diseases, said the Health MinisterArthur Chioro.

Hypertension, a major risk factor for heart related diseases, reaches one in every 5 Brazilians – 31.3 million people reported having been diagnosed with high blood pressure. Of this total, 14.1% were admitted for complications caused by the disease.

Another major factor for the increased risk of heart related diseases is high cholesterol – 12.5% of people over the age of 18 years had this diagnosis. Other 6.2% have diabetes. But the data can be underestimated, since 11.5% of population never did the test of glucose level in the blood.

Research has shown that among people diagnosed more than 10 years, 36, 6% developed vision problems; 15.5%, circulatory problems; 13.3%, kidney problems; 7.1% got heart attacks; 4.4% suffered cerebrovascular accidents (stroke) and 2.4% had to amputate a limb.

Depression. Eleven million suffer from depression, and the prevalence is greater in the urban region (8%) than in rural areas (5.6%). The South and South-East presented the greatest percentage of diagnoses of depression, 12.6% and 8.4%, respectively. Despite the diagnosis, less than half (46.4%) received medical assistance.

The research shows that one out of every 10 Brazilians suffer from depression. Among men, the proportion goes from one out of every 25. According to Maria Lucia Vieira, Manager of the National Health Research, higher proportion of women with chronic diseases has been a constant in the survey. This is because they seek more medical care. “There is a resistance of men in searching for the mental health professional”.

Source: O Estado de São Paulo.

Read more: 57,4 millions of Brazilians have at least one chronic diseas