We wish there weren’t things that could be considered “global killers” at all. Like war. Giant asteroids. Robot uprisings.
But as a world we need to focus on our health — and we’ve been doing that, but our focus has been too narrow. We’ve been focusing on things like AIDS and the Flu only, as they’re quicker killers, when we should be turning some of our attention to what’s being called “a public health emergency in slow motion.”
So what’s the issue? Is there a cure?
Sadly, we’re the issue. We’re the ones being inactive, smoking, and overeating.
Next week, the U.N. General Assembly will hold its first summit on chronic diseases – cancer, diabetes and heart and lung disease. Those account for nearly two-thirds of deaths worldwide, or about 36 million. In the United States, they kill nearly 9 out of 10 people. They have common risk factors, such as smoking and sedentary lifestyles, and many are preventable.
Here are some of the issues, by continent:
_Europe and North America. These regions are paying the price of too much eating, too little exercise and smoking: heart disease and diabetes dominate. Cancers that are more prevalent with age – breast and prostate – reflect long life spans in these regions where treatment is widely available. In Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, lung cancer is the dominant cancer in men. Europe has the highest smoking prevalence in the world: 29 percent.
_Asia. Southeast Asia has the lowest rates of obesity in the world, even lower than Africa. Yet in China, where only 6 percent of the population is obese, nearly 4 in 10 people have high blood pressure. China also has three times the death rate from respiratory diseases as the United States. Many areas also have high rates of infection with HPV, a sexually spread virus that can cause cervical cancer.
_In India, the government has launched an aggressive diabetes and high blood pressure screening project. There are 51 million diabetics in India, the second-highest incidence in the world after China. Lung cancer is the most common type of cancer in India among men; in women, it’s cervical cancer.
_Central and South America. Cancer prevalence patterns largely resemble North America except that cervical cancer dominates among women in certain areas. Access to care is much poorer in many countries. Dr. Angel Sanchez, an International Cancer Corps volunteer for the American Society of Clinical Oncology, told of conditions at a hospital in Honduras, where there are more than 700 new cancer cases every year for two oncologists to handle.
So scary. Especially when a lot of this stuff is preventable. We can’t even believe how few oncologists there are in Central and South America.
Hopefully the U.N. can come up with a way to get people to notice the harmful lifestyles they lead, all over the world.
There needs to be a huge shift in mentality before we can really get down to business of saving our lives.
[Image via AP Images.]
