Health@Heart Avoid dying early!

PhiliP S. Chua, MD, FaCS, FPCS

IN 2005, a 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 billion, and India $236 billion, 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 percent 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 percent in 1990, “in part by making fruits and vegetables more available, and removing subsidies on dairy products, like butter.”

Philippine statistics

The table in this column of the Leading Causes of Mortality (Number and Rate per 100,000 Population) in the Philippines will show we are part of this pandemic of preventable deaths (see table).

A major part of our unhealthy lifestyle as a people is our diet of high-saturated fat, highcholesterol (red meats, processed delis, lard, dairy products), highcarbohydrate, low-fiber foods, and our sedentary life. 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 fastfood chains all around us make matters even worse. Somehow, as parents, we have neglected to put more emphasis on fish, which is actually the

PINOY THIS SUNDAY. Upon the urging of Mommy Eva (center), Kristan (left) tried to obtain his green card by filing all paperwork on his own, instead of retaining a qualified and knowledgeable attorney. After all, he thought the process was simple, and he could save all that money on attorney fees. But Kristan’s filings always resulted in denial or rejections. He filed for adjustment as a minor when he was already an adult. He filed as the child of a U.S. citizen, when his mother was only an immigrant. And he was out of status. Eventually, the family decided to retain the services of leading U.S. Immigration Attorney Michael J. Gurfinkel (right) who was able to straighten out Kristan’s case, and obtain his green card in the U.S., despite Kristan being out of status. Watch this success story on an encore episode of “Citizen Pinoy” on Sunday, April 23 at 6:30 PM PT (9:30 PM ET) through select Cable/Satellite providers, right after TV Patrol Linggo. (Advertising Supplement)