Lancet Commission Maps 17 Catastrophic Health Threats to 2100: Obesity Tops Single-Threat Avoidable Burden; Malicious SI and Nuclear Conflict Flagged as Extinction-Level
A new Lancet Commission, launched at the World Health Summit 2026 in Berlin, has mapped the catastrophic threats to health and human survival between 2025 and 2100. Drawing on Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation analysis covering 204 countries and territories, the 35-member commission narrowed hundreds of candidate threats to 17 that could each account for at least one billion disability-adjusted life years by 2100.
Only two threats were classed as having extinction potential: the malicious use of super intelligence and nuclear conflict. The remaining threats span air pollution, antimicrobial resistance, natural pandemics, climate change, high blood pressure, smoking, alcohol use, poor mental health, childhood malnutrition, income inequality, low educational attainment, shrinking health aid, conventional conflict and unhealthy ageing — and obesity, whose avoidable burden the commission put at roughly 23.1 billion DALYs by 2100, the largest single figure in its modelling; NPR accordingly described obesity as the single largest threat to global health over the next 75 years.
(Sources: The Lancet, NPR)
Source: 《柳叶刀》、NPR
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：日内瓦世界卫生组织总部大楼。摄影：Yann，CC BY-SA 4.0，来源：Wikimedia Commons
