A study from the World Health Organization (WHO) said that 14 million lives worldwide could be saved by 2015 if smoking and salt intake were reduced in developing nations, Bloomberg News reported Dec. 5.

WHO said that 5.5 million lives could be saved if countries adopted the tobacco-control measures outlined in the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, including higher cigarette taxes, smoke-free workplace legislation, ad bans, and warning labels.

Another 18 million lives could be saved by providing aspirin, blood-pressure medications, and cholesterol-reducing treatment to residents of low- and middle-income nations, WHO said.

Sixty percent of deaths worldwide are caused by heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, asthma, and smoker's cough, researchers noted. "The idea in a lot of people's heads is that these are diseases of rich countries," said the WHO's Colin Mathers, a study co-author. "It's not true. Most deaths in the world from heart disease, cancer and so on are in low-and middle-income countries."

The findings were published in a series of articles in the journal The Lancet.