A/HRC/19/59 and 2020—and by over 20 per cent in Africa, South-East Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean.12 Moreover, NCDs are more rapidly fatal in poorer countries. In both SouthEast Asia and Africa, 41 per cent of deaths caused by high BMI occur under age 60, compared with 18 per cent in high-income countries.13 For society, the costs are huge, directly in medical care and indirectly in lost productivity.14 An important time lag exists between the onset of obesity and the increase in health-care costs, but it has been estimated for instance that the costs linked to overweight and obesity in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in 2015 could increase by as much as 70 per cent relative to 2007 and could be 2.4 times higher in 2025.15 In countries such as India or China, the impact of obesity and diabetes is predicted to surge in the next few years.16 On average, a 10 per cent increase in NCDs results in a loss of 0.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).17 Figure 1. Total deaths by broad cause group, by WHO Region, World Bank income group and by sex, 2008 (Note: AFR=African Region, AMR=Region of the Americas, EMR= Eastern Mediterranean Region, EUR= European Region, SEAR=South-East Asia Region, WPR=Western Pacific Region). Source: WHO, Global Status Report on Noncommunicable Diseases 2010 (Geneva, 2011), p. 10. 12 13 14 15 16 17 6 WHO, Global Status Report, p. 9. WHO, Global Health Risks, p. 17. In the United States, direct medical and indirect expenditures attributable to diabetes in 2002 were estimated at US$ 132 billion, more than doubling the total health-care costs for that year (American Diabetes Association, ―Economic costs of diabetes in the US in 2002,‖ Diabetes Care, vol. 26, No. 3 (2003), p. 917; in 2007, the figure was US$ 174 billion (American Diabetes Association, ―Economic costs of diabetes in the US in 2007,‖ Diabetes Care, vol. 31, No. 3 (2008), p. 596. For the Latin America and Caribbean region, diabetes health-care costs amount to US$ 65 billion per year, or 2 to 4 per cent of GDP (report of the Secretary-General (A/66/83), para. 28). United Kingdom, Government Office for Science, Tackling Obesities: Future Choices (2007), p. 40. B.M. Popkin, ―Will China‘s nutrition transition overwhelm its health care system and slow economic growth?‖ Health Affairs, vol. 27, No. 4 (2008), p. 1072 (estimating that the indirect economic effects of overweight and obesity could reach 8.73 per cent of GDP in 2025). WHO, Global Status Report, p. 3.