Life expectancy for women at 50 has improved, but the gap between poor and rich countries is growing and could worsen without better detection and treatment of cardiovascular disease and cancers, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday.

A WHO study, one of the first to analyse the causes of death of older women, found that in wealthier countries deaths from noncommunicable diseases has fallen dramatically in recent decades, especially from cancers of the stomach, colon, breast and cervix.

Women over 50 in low and middle-income countries are also living longer, but chronic ailments, including diabetes, kill them at an earlier age than their counterparts, it said.

"The gap in life expectancy between such women in rich and poor countries is growing," said the WHO study, part of an issue of the WHO's monthly bulletin devoted to women's health.

There is a similar growing gap between the life expectancy of men over 50 in rich and lower income countries and in some parts of the world, this gap is wider, WHO officials said.

"More women can expect to live longer and not just survive child birth and childhood. But what we found is that improvement is much stronger in the rich world than in the poor world. The disparity between the two is increasing," Dr John Beard, director of WHO's department of ageing and life course, said in an interview at WHO headquarters.

BETTER PREVENTION AND TREATMENT

Beard, one of the study's three authors, said: "What it also points to is that we need particularly in low and middle-income countries to start to think about how these emerging needs of women get addressed. The success in the rich world would suggest that is through better prevention and treatment of NCDs."

In women over 50 years old, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), particularly cancers, heart disease and strokes, are the most common causes of death, regardless of the level of economic development of the country in which they live, the study said.

Health ministers from WHO's 194 member states agreed on a global action plan to prevent and control noncommunicable diseases at their annual ministerial meeting last May.

Developed countries have tackled cardiovascular diseases and cancers in women with tangible results, the WHO study said.

Fewer women aged 50 years and older in rich countries are dying from heart disease, stroke and diabetes than 30 years ago and these improvements contributed most to increasing women's life expectancy at the age of 50, it said. An older woman in Germany can now expect to live to 84 and in Japan to 88 years, against 73 in South Africa and 80 in Mexico.

"That reflects two things, better prevention, particularly clinical prevention around control of hypertension and screening of cervical cancer, but it also reflects better treatment," Beard said.

"I think that is particularly true for breast cancer where women with breast cancer are much better managed these days in the rich world. That also explains the disparity," he said.

Low-income countries, especially in Africa, offer community services to treat diseases like Aids or offer maternal care but many lack services to detect or treat breast cancer, he said.

In many developing countries, there is also limited access to high blood pressure medication to treat hypertension, one of the biggest risk factors for death, he added.

Women with cardiovascular disease and cancers need the kind of chronic treatment provided to those with HIV/Aids, he said. - Reuters