Diseases relating to the heart, cancer, diabetes and respiratory diseases claim the lives of every one person every two seconds under the age of 70, a World Health Organisation report has said.

Almost nine out of the 10 those deaths are taking place in low and middle-income countries. "Millions of people - especially in lower-income settings - cannot access the prevention, treatment and care that could prevent or delay noncommunicable diseases and their consequences.

Every year 17 million people under the age of 70 die of NCDs, and 86 per cent of them live in low-and middle-income countries," said the report.

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are chief among them. "Cardiovascular diseases (heart disease and stroke), cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases- cause nearly three-quarter of deaths in the world," it added.

The WHO has mentioned in the report that the reasons behind the increasing NCDs are social, environmental, commercial and genetic. However, one in six deaths - that's 9.3 million families are dying from cancer every year.