Non-communicable disease Non-communicable disease A non-communicable disease (NCD) is a disease that is not transmissible directly from one person to another. NCDs include Parkinson's disease, autoimmune diseases, strokes, most heart diseases, most cancers, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, Alzheimer's disease, cataracts, and others. NCDs may be chronic or acute. Most are non-infectious, although there are some non-communicable infectious diseases, such as parasitic diseases in which the parasite's life cycle does not include direct host-to-host transmission. NCDs are the leading cause of death globally. In 2012, they caused 68% of all deaths (38 million) up from 60% in 2000. About half were
Infectious causes of cancer obesity (~15%). Cancer causes 22.5% of deaths in the United States, so that about 2% of mortality in the United States appears to be due to cancers caused by infections. This is comparable to mortality caused by influenza and pneumonia, which cause 2.1% of deaths in the United States. Worldwide in 2015, the most common causes of cancer death were lung cancer (1.6 million deaths), liver cancer (745,000 deaths), and stomach cancer (723,000 deaths). Lung cancer is largely due to non-infectious causes, such as tobacco smoke. However, liver and stomach cancer are primarily due to infectious causes. Liver cancer is