Blogia
criticamedicina

Bernard Lown de ProCOR

Greetings,
WHO's new report, "Preventing chronic diseases: a vital investment" is a
significant development in global public health. In one compact opus are
assembled relevant up-to-date data on the magnitude of cardiovascular disease,
diabetes, obesity, and other chronic diseases now in mounting pandemic around
the world.

It has been said that statistics are facts with the tears washed
away. This document powerfully brings to the fore the human tragic narrative of
afflicted individuals whose experiences would otherwise be invisible, presented
merely as ciphers in voluminous data.

Effectively demonstrated are the linkages between poverty and chronic ailments.
The great virtue of the WHO study is that an action plan is spelled out. The
population-wide approach promises the saving millions of lives without indulging
in non-affordable technologies based on super-trained specialists now waylaying
industrialized countries. The public health strategy heralded offers an
effective action plan that can be realized even amidst poverty and deprivation.

During the past 8 years ProCOR has been in the forefront stimulating awareness
of the mounting toll of cardiovascular disease in poor countries. The source of
the epidemic are the practices and lifestyles of the affluent, now gaining world
dominance. Industrialized countries are the source not only of the affliction
but of the remedy as well. Having been the first to experience these diseases,
they have evolved a powerful understanding of the precursors, largely the
consequence of adverse lifestyle practices. The bottom line and a very
elementary truth is that cardiovascular disease is now largely preventable. This
does not require tertiary care hospitals but education and empowerment of the
public supported by community and societal policies. The WHO report points the
way forward and provides a blueprint for success. Needed is moral commitment
and political will of the health profession.

Bernard Lown, MD
Founder and Chairman, ProCOR

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