Health @ Heart
Preventable deaths
Last week's 128-page report from the World Health Organization in Geneva stated that "nearly 400 million people will die from heart diseases, diabetes and other chronic ailments over the next 10 years, but many of those deaths can be prevented by healthier lifestyles and inexpensive medications." Of the 40 million deaths per year in the world, 28 million would be in developing countries.
WHO director-general Lee Jong Wook commented that "the lives of too many people in the world are being blighted and cut short by chronic diseases. He cited the latest WHO report "to draw attention to the increasing threat from diseases that can be prevented in part by healthier diets and giving up smoking," writes the Associated Press.
This recent report also was the first "to quantify the economic burden of treating such conditions in individual countries." China, for instance, will be spending $588 billion in the next ten years, Russia, $303, and India $236, in managing heart disease, diabetes and strokes.
The co-author of the study, Robert Beaglehole, lamented that this epidemic is preventable because "we know what to do, how to do it, and preventions are very cheap," and yet people die unnecessarily.
The WHO report highlighted the fact that heart-diseases-related mortality is down 70% in the United States, England, Australia and Canada in the last 30 years because of effective national prevention policies and campaigns in these industrialized nations that cut the death rates significantly.
Citing Poland's statistics which showed reduced death rates among young adults by 10% in 1990, "in part by making fruits and vegetables more available, and removing subsidies on dairy products, like butter."
The following tabulation of the Leading Causes of Mortality (Number and Rate per 100,000 Population) in the Philippines will show we are part of this pandemic.
CAUSES |
NUMBER |
RATE* |
1. Diseases of the Heart |
49,962 |
69.8 |
2. Diseases of the Vascular System |
38,693 |
54.1 |
3. Pneumonia |
30,811 |
43.1 |
4. Accidents |
28,563 |
39.9 |
5. Malignant Neoplasm |
26,842 |
37.5 |
6. Tuberculosis, All Forms |
23,056 |
32.2 |
7. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases and Allied Condition |
11,807 |
16.5 |
8. Other Diseases of the Respiratory System |
6,961 |
9.7 |
9. Diabetes Mellitus |
6,749 |
9.4 |
10. Nephritis, Nephrotic Syndrome and Nephrosis |
6,704 |
9.4 |
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Source: Philippine Health Statistics 1997 |
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A major part of our unhealthy lifestyle as a people is our diet of high-saturated fat, high-cholesterol (red meats, eggs, lard, dairy products), high-carbohydrate, low-fiber foods. Filipinos, in general, especially those who can afford, do not seem to care for vegetables, fruits, nuts and grains. It must be our culture. We train our infants and our young children to eat red meats and other high fat foods, believing these proteins are "good for their young body," so when they grow up, they continue with the same unhealthy "habit" and remain "hooked" to red meats, eggs and other high cholesterol food items. The fast food chains all around us make matters even worse. Somehow, as parents, we have neglected to put more emphasis on fish, which is actually the superior source of protein, plus the added bonus of an ingredient in fish, Omega-3 fatty acids, the oil that protects the heart, besides the brain. And many of us do not seem to accept the fact that smoking maims and kills, and that daily physical exercise, besides the low-fat, low-cholesterol, low-carbohydrate and high-fiber diet, is vital for a healthy lifestyle, to maintain good health and well-being.
The Philippines is obviously not immune from these preventable deaths reported by the World Health Organization. It behooves our national, provincial and city governments to implement policies that will help cut down these deaths. As a nation, we are wanting in a serious, concerted and aggressive health campaign for a healthier lifestyle for our people starting from the crib. It's time we adopted one.