Brazil has seen a fall in the number of heart disease deaths in the country, but the number of diabetic deaths has increased, a health ministry report said Thursday.

The Brazilian Health Report 2008 said the number of deaths caused by cardiovascular diseases dropped by 20.5 percent between 1990 and 2006.

Leading cause of deaths in the country, cardiovascular diseases, including heart attacks and strokes, killed 300,000 people in 2006, accounting for almost 30 percent of the total deaths of the year.

The report added there was a significant reduction in deaths from such diseases among the population aged between 20 and 74, for whom the risk of deaths fell from 187.9 per 100,000 inhabitants in 1990 to 149.4 per 100,000 in 2006, representing a decrease of 1.4 percent per year.

Among younger people, aged from 20 to 39 years, the annual fall recorded was 3.6 percent for women and 3.3 percent for men.

The ministry noted that the expansion of basic health care was essential to achieving these results, since the diseases can be controlled through early diagnosis and treatment.

The health ministry attributed the decrease of deaths to an increase of the public awareness about heart conditions and to the health policies, such as the promotion of a balanced diet and physical exercises as ways to maintain health.

“These are diseases which can be controlled with early diagnoses and information,” said Otaliba Libanio Neto, head of the ministry’s health trend analysis section.

But the same report warned that diabetes became one of the greatest health concerns in the country between 1980 and 2005 as the risk of death rose from 16.3 per 100,000 in 1990 to 24 per 100,000 in 2006.

The increase was more noteworthy among Brazilian men above 40 years old, who see their risk of deaths from diabetes increasing by 2.3 percent per year. Among men older than 60, the incidence of diabetes-related deaths rose 3.5 percent per year.

The rise was lower among Brazilian women of the same age groups- 1.0 percent per year among those older than 40 and 1.7 percent per year among women aged 60 and older

Among Brazilians aged 20 to 39, the incidence of deaths from diabetes fell 1.6 percent per year for women and dropped 1.5 percent per year for men.

The main cause of the increase in the incidence of diabetic deaths was the fact that the Brazilians’ average weight has increased in that period.

The report also found that the number of diarrhea deaths among children aged less than one year decreased from 32,704 in 1980 to 1,988 in 2005, a reduction of 93.9 percent.

With this decrease, the disease is no longer the leading cause of infant mortality, which thanks to immunization fell 97.2 percent between 1980 and 2005 as far as measles and polio are concerned. Malnutrition- and anemia-caused deaths dropped by 89.2 percent, and acute respiratory infections-caused deaths decreased by 87.5 percent in the same period.

The report held urbanization, access to treated water, better food, improved sewerage treatment, and control of dehydration as contributing to the overall trend of fatality decrease in the country.