Tag Archives: Editorials

Health: Growing Concern Over “The Obesity-Cancer Link” (The Lancet)

February 19, 2020 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

From a The Lancet online editorial (Feb 3, 2020):

Prevention represents the most cost-effective, long-term strategy for reducing the cancer burden and associated mortality. If provided with adequate information and support to adopt a healthy lifestyle, individuals can reduce their exposure to behavioural and dietary cancer risk factors by quitting smoking, maintaining a healthy BMI, cutting down on alcohol consumption, exercising more, and eating a healthy diet rich in fruit and vegetables.

Although smoking is currently the major cause of preventable cancer cases and accounts for 22% of cancer deaths, a 2018 report from Cancer Research UK estimated that high BMI (overweight and obesity) now causes more cases of four common cancers (bowel, kidney, ovarian, and liver) in the UK than does smoking, and could overtake smoking as the biggest cause of cancer in women in the UK by 2043. According to WHO, in 2016, 1·9 billion adults around the world were overweight, of whom 650 million had obesity—triple the number in 1975. State-level projections for the USA paint an even bleaker picture going forward: by 2030, 48·9% of adults will have obesity; 24·2% of adults will have severe obesity; and severe obesity will be the most common BMI category among women, non-Hispanic black adults, and low-income adults. With such shocking statistics, the knock-on effect of the obesity epidemic for cancer prevention and control cannot be underestimated.

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News, Politics

2020 Candidates: New York Times Endorses “Both” Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren For President

January 20, 2020 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

From a New York Times Editorial (January 20, 2020):

Any hope of restoring unity in the country will require modesty, a willingness to compromise and the support of the many demographics that make up the Democratic coalition — young and old, in red states and blue, black and brown and white. For Senator Klobuchar, that’s acknowledging the depth of the nation’s dysfunction. For Senator Warren, it’s understanding that the country is more diverse than her base.

…Amy Klobuchar has emerged as a standard-bearer for the Democratic center. Her vision goes beyond the incremental. Given the polarization in Washington and beyond, the best chance to enact many progressive plans could be under a Klobuchar administration.

…Elizabeth Warren has emerged as a standard-bearer for the Democratic left…Ms. Warren has proposed to pay for an expanded social safety net by imposing a new tax on wealth. But even if she could push such a bill through the Senate, the idea is constitutionally suspect and would inevitably be bogged down for years in the courts. A conservative judiciary also could constrain a President Warren’s regulatory powers, and roll back access to health care.

Ms. Klobuchar and Ms. Warren right now are the Democrats best equipped to lead that debate. May the best woman win.

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Aging, Health, Medicine

Health: “Multimorbidity” Is Rising, Creating Greater Demand For “Cluster Medicine” Expertise (BMJ)

January 7, 2020 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

From a The BMJ online editorial:

The proportion of patients who have two or more medical conditions simultaneously is, however, rising steadily. This is currently termed multimorbidity, although patient groups prefer the more intuitive “multiple health conditions.” In high income countries, multimorbidity is mainly driven by age, and the proportion of the population living with two or more diseases is steadily increasing because of demographic change. This trend will continue.

Cluster medicine

The cluster around diabetes is a good example, with the common serious disease affecting the heart, nervous system, skin, peripheral vasculature, and eyes. Diabetologists already provide care for the cluster of multiorgan diseases around diabetes, and some specialties, such as geriatrics or general practice, have multimorbidity at their heart. For most, however, training and service organisation are not optimised to face a multimorbidity dominated future.

The shift includes moving from thinking about multimorbidity as a random assortment of individual conditions to recognising it as a series of largely predictable clusters of disease in the same person. Some of these clusters will occur by chance alone because individuals are affected by a variety of commonly occurring diseases. Many, however, will be non-random because of common genetic, behavioural, or environmental pathways to disease. Identifying these clusters is a priority and will help us to be more systematic in our approach to multimorbidity.