ABSTRACT
The diffusion of disease around the world is not entirely a one-way process of transmission from South to North. Globalization has also seen certain non-communicable ‘lifestyle illnesses’, associated with mass-consumption societies of the global North, head southwards as people in LDCs adopt some of the unhealthy practices associated with modernization. The consumption of high-fat and high-sugar foods, for example, has led to previously minor health problems such as obesity, heart disease and diabetes becoming more prominent in many LDCs. Tobacco smoking has become more common in a number of LDCs (encouraged by northern MNCs faced with a declining market at home), leading to a rise in lung cancer. Alcohol and narcotic drugs in LDCs may not be being supplied by the North but their increased usage, and associated problems of addiction and infection via needles, is believed to be a cultural import (McMurray and Smith 2001).
