The need to resume preventive policies for chronic noncommunicable diseases

This article was exclusively written for The European Sting by Ms. Bianca Pamela Soares, a 25 years old graduate student of the 10th period of medicine at Santa Marcelina Medical School, in São Paulo, Brazil. She is affiliated to the International Federation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA), cordial partner of The Sting. The opinions expressed in this piece belong strictly to the writer and do not necessarily reflect IFMSA’s view on the topic, nor The European Sting’s one.

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Noncommunicable chronic diseases (NCDs) constitute the largest global health problem and have generated a high number of premature deaths, loss of quality of life, a high degree of limitation and disability, and are responsible for the economic impacts on families and communities. general society.¹ Data from the World Health Organization (WHO) indicate that 16 million Brazilians suffer with diabetes. Still according to the study, the incidence rate of the disease has grown 61.8% in the last ten years.² In Brazil, the rates of chronic diseases such as systemic arterial hypertension (SAH) and diabetes mellitus (DM) are highly prevalent and the main causes of death in the country are cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. These data must be adopted by preventive public policies. As for the healthcare professional its function is not just to measure blood pressure, perform dextro or prescribe a drug, it is necessary to advise family members to maintain a low carbohydrate diet by reducing their intake of fat and salt in food. Consume more organic foods instead of processed foods. The concern is great to prevent these diseases from controlling only the lifestyle. Prevention begins at home with parents, for example by encouraging them to walk 1 hour a day, reducing their consumption of bread, pasta and sugar. Decrease the salt of food and the consumption of all the fried foods, which contribute to the advance of chronic noncommunicable diseases. Medium and long-term actions, with education of health professionals in primary care are essential, thus began by the college annual campaigns for prevention of diabetes and hypertension (SAH), disclosing in the community the importance of prevention, what are the long term bad effects of the disease and also measuring the BP, the blood glucose test, weigh on the participant and measuring the waist circumference. From these data and the participant’s history, we discuss the change in lifestyle, and a unit for family health strategy (FHE) follow-up is indicated. The good health professional is not the expert who knows everything about his own specialty. But the one who cares about the patient as a whole. And it works so that in their own family and around people have better control of eating habits and physical activities, as these factors negatively influence the patient. A surgery, for example, will not occur if a patient has decompensated SAH and DM, he is at greater risk of death due to comorbidities during surgery or postoperatively than the disease itself that needs surgery. Bibliography

1. Mortalidade por doenças crônicas não transmissíveis no Brasil e suas regiões, 2000 a 2011. Epidemiol. Serv. Saúde, Brasília, 23(4):599-608, out-dez 2014.
2. Taxa de incidência de diabetes cresceu 61,8% nos últimos 10 anos. Disponível em:< https://portal.fiocruz.br/noticia/taxa-de-incidencia-de-diabetes-cresceu-618-nos-ultimos-10-anos>.Acesso em 20/07/2019 as 19h00.

About the author Bianca Pamela Soares is 25 years old and is a graduate student of the 10th period of medicine at Santa Marcelina Medical School, in São Paulo. Her goal as a doctor is to specialize in cancer surgery, but she has always kept in mind that if she does not look at her patients as a whole she won’t be a good professional. Considering that although the number of cancer patients grows by the day, chronic diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure are highly prevalent and can be controlled with lifestyle changes, so in college she has started local campaigns to discuss the issue with the population.