Mostly preventable chronic diseases kill yearly 41 million people. And yet no one is really paying the due attention or drawing the right conclusions. Dr. Sidy Diallo explains why.
Forty-One Million Preventable Deaths
By Dr. Barefoot Sidy Diallo
These diseases not only kill yearly 41 million people—an annual death toll expected to “rise to 52 million by 2030”—, but also destroy the lives of billions of men and women. And yet no one is sincerely paying the due attention, not to mention drawing the right conclusions. I explain why.
The World Health Organization rightfully points out that:
Translation into plain English: The chronic diseases that kill yearly 41 million people “are the result of four particular risk factors: tobacco, alcohol, physical inactivity and excess of food.” More accurately, laziness, gluttony and the consumption of tobacco, alcohol and other legal or illegal drugs are causing tens of millions of deaths and destroying the lives of billions of people.
I explain in my book Running Barefoot for Human Survival and on this website the mathematical link between excess of food and obesity, no matter the quality of the food. Fat chefs, fat doctors or fat CEOs are among those who provide the best evidence of the biochemical link, with excess calories—whether from caviar or pizza—turning into body fat.
“Chronic illnesses: UN stands up to stop 41 million avoidable deaths per year,” vowed the world organization in September 2018. Excerpts:
“Heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, chronic lung disease, depression—just some of the illnesses outlined by World Health Organization (WHO) chief Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, who drove home the danger by asking delegates to stand up, when they heard the name of an illness that had killed someone they loved: One by one, every single person in the room, got to their feet. That was the scene at UN Headquarters in New York, when around 500 people gathered to talk about the prevention and control of chronic illnesses. ‘I am here to tell you that we are dangerously off course,’ warned WHO’s chief. ‘But we can change course,’ he added. ‘We could prevent 10 million of these deaths by 2025,’ he explained.”
Regrettably, for the UN, the World Health Organization, national health institutions and policy-makers, the “key components of the response to chronic diseases are detection, screening and treatment of chronic diseases, as well as palliative care.” As a result, even the World Health Organization expects the yearly death toll of chronic diseases to “rise to 52 million by 2030,” instead of delivering their 2018 vow to reduce the yearly death toll to 31 million by 2025.
This means that the “around 500 delegates” and the World Health Organization chief not only failed the people and the taxpayers, but also aggravated the global warming with their useless and counterproductive trip to New York.
Any five-year-old boy or girl would tell them: “Ladies and gentlemen, with all due respect, the solution to stay healthy and save tens of millions of lives is to eliminate the risk factors of the chronic diseases, and unless you act accordingly for yourselves, you’ll likely end up dying from these diseases.”
So, preventable chronic diseases kill yearly 41 million people, with or without Covid-19. And yet no one is drawing the right conclusions. That’s because of the perfidy and the significant power of all those who take the advantage to make money, assert their powers and keep patients in ignorance, laziness, gluttony, addictions, etc., by cajoling them and pretending to look after them until they die. It’s horrendously inhuman, but it’s the sad reality of the world we live in: every opportunity is good to make money and impose, if possible, dictatorship.
For instance, while everyone now knows that overweight and obesity are among the main aggravating factors for Covid-19 and the risk of death, instead of increasing their calorie expenditure or eating less to lose weight, many people—including obese people--keep ingesting more calories than they need and consuming alcohol or tobacco, etc., while blaming the pandemic for their weight gain, as if the virus had calories!
People suffering from these easily preventable diseases are also at greater risk of dying from COVID-19 and losing their physical and cognitive abilities. “Heart disease, diabetes, stroke, lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were responsible for nearly 100 million additional healthy life years lost in 2019 compared to 2000,” according to WHO. So why do we keep aggravating these comorbidities, instead of preventing and eradicating them by stopping their risk factors (physical inactivity, tobacco, alcohol, excess of food, etc.) now, and by adapting our lifestyle to our biology? —Wake up, Homo sapiens!
Extracts of the World Health Organization News Release on the leading causes of death and disability worldwide (2000–2019): “Noncommunicable diseases now make up 7 of the world’s top 10 causes of death, an increase from 4 of the 10 leading causes in 2000. Heart disease remains the number 1 killer. Diabetes and dementia enter the top 10. People are living longer—but with more disability. People living with pre-existing health conditions (such as heart disease, diabetes and respiratory conditions) are at higher risk of complications and death due to COVID-19.”
My book Running Barefoot for Human Survival is available on Amazon in paperback and e-book format (French edition: Courir pieds nus pour sauver les humains).
These diseases not only kill yearly 41 million people—an annual death toll expected to “rise to 52 million by 2030”—, but also destroy the lives of billions of men and women. And yet no one is sincerely paying the due attention, not to mention drawing the right conclusions. I explain why.
The World Health Organization rightfully points out that:
- “Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), also known as chronic diseases, kill 41 million people each year, equivalent to 74% of all deaths globally. Cardiovascular diseases account for most NCD deaths, or 17.9 million people annually, followed by cancers (9.3 million), chronic respiratory diseases (4.1 million), and diabetes (2.0 million including kidney disease deaths caused by diabetes).”
- “Preventable risk factors underlie most noncommunicable diseases. Most noncommunicable diseases are the result of four particular behaviors (tobacco use, physical inactivity, unhealthy diet, and the harmful use of alcohol) that lead to four key metabolic/physiological changes (raised blood pressure, overweight/obesity, raised blood glucose and raised cholesterol).”
Translation into plain English: The chronic diseases that kill yearly 41 million people “are the result of four particular risk factors: tobacco, alcohol, physical inactivity and excess of food.” More accurately, laziness, gluttony and the consumption of tobacco, alcohol and other legal or illegal drugs are causing tens of millions of deaths and destroying the lives of billions of people.
I explain in my book Running Barefoot for Human Survival and on this website the mathematical link between excess of food and obesity, no matter the quality of the food. Fat chefs, fat doctors or fat CEOs are among those who provide the best evidence of the biochemical link, with excess calories—whether from caviar or pizza—turning into body fat.
“Chronic illnesses: UN stands up to stop 41 million avoidable deaths per year,” vowed the world organization in September 2018. Excerpts:
“Heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, chronic lung disease, depression—just some of the illnesses outlined by World Health Organization (WHO) chief Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, who drove home the danger by asking delegates to stand up, when they heard the name of an illness that had killed someone they loved: One by one, every single person in the room, got to their feet. That was the scene at UN Headquarters in New York, when around 500 people gathered to talk about the prevention and control of chronic illnesses. ‘I am here to tell you that we are dangerously off course,’ warned WHO’s chief. ‘But we can change course,’ he added. ‘We could prevent 10 million of these deaths by 2025,’ he explained.”
Regrettably, for the UN, the World Health Organization, national health institutions and policy-makers, the “key components of the response to chronic diseases are detection, screening and treatment of chronic diseases, as well as palliative care.” As a result, even the World Health Organization expects the yearly death toll of chronic diseases to “rise to 52 million by 2030,” instead of delivering their 2018 vow to reduce the yearly death toll to 31 million by 2025.
This means that the “around 500 delegates” and the World Health Organization chief not only failed the people and the taxpayers, but also aggravated the global warming with their useless and counterproductive trip to New York.
Any five-year-old boy or girl would tell them: “Ladies and gentlemen, with all due respect, the solution to stay healthy and save tens of millions of lives is to eliminate the risk factors of the chronic diseases, and unless you act accordingly for yourselves, you’ll likely end up dying from these diseases.”
So, preventable chronic diseases kill yearly 41 million people, with or without Covid-19. And yet no one is drawing the right conclusions. That’s because of the perfidy and the significant power of all those who take the advantage to make money, assert their powers and keep patients in ignorance, laziness, gluttony, addictions, etc., by cajoling them and pretending to look after them until they die. It’s horrendously inhuman, but it’s the sad reality of the world we live in: every opportunity is good to make money and impose, if possible, dictatorship.
For instance, while everyone now knows that overweight and obesity are among the main aggravating factors for Covid-19 and the risk of death, instead of increasing their calorie expenditure or eating less to lose weight, many people—including obese people--keep ingesting more calories than they need and consuming alcohol or tobacco, etc., while blaming the pandemic for their weight gain, as if the virus had calories!
People suffering from these easily preventable diseases are also at greater risk of dying from COVID-19 and losing their physical and cognitive abilities. “Heart disease, diabetes, stroke, lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were responsible for nearly 100 million additional healthy life years lost in 2019 compared to 2000,” according to WHO. So why do we keep aggravating these comorbidities, instead of preventing and eradicating them by stopping their risk factors (physical inactivity, tobacco, alcohol, excess of food, etc.) now, and by adapting our lifestyle to our biology? —Wake up, Homo sapiens!
Extracts of the World Health Organization News Release on the leading causes of death and disability worldwide (2000–2019): “Noncommunicable diseases now make up 7 of the world’s top 10 causes of death, an increase from 4 of the 10 leading causes in 2000. Heart disease remains the number 1 killer. Diabetes and dementia enter the top 10. People are living longer—but with more disability. People living with pre-existing health conditions (such as heart disease, diabetes and respiratory conditions) are at higher risk of complications and death due to COVID-19.”
My book Running Barefoot for Human Survival is available on Amazon in paperback and e-book format (French edition: Courir pieds nus pour sauver les humains).