HCFI Update: British are out and now get azadi from life style disorders

Forget the past as a history and live in the present. Celebrate 15th August every year as day of independence from eradicable diseases said Padma Shri and Dr B C Roy National Awardee Dr KK Aggarwal, President Heart Care Foundation of India & MTNL Perfect Health Mela.

Every year on 15th August the Prime Minister should announce a 'Quit' India Movement for a particular disease.

The International Task Force for Disease Eradication in 1992 identified six "eradicable" or "potentially eradicable" infectious diseases. These are dracunculiasis, poliomyelitis, mumps, rubella, lymphatic filariasis, and cysticercosis. In 2002, measles was added to this list. Of this only guinea worm disease or dracunculiasis has already been eradicated from India so far. Polio is on the verge or eradication.

Malaria, yellow fever, and yaws eradication programmes of earlier years were unsuccessful but they contributed greatly to a better understanding of the biological, social, political, and economic complexities of achieving the ultimate goal in disease control. In early 1997, WHO listed leprosy, onchocerciasis (River blindness), and Chaga’s disease as being candidates for elimination "as public health problems within ten years".

Life style disorders are other eradicable diseases as they are man made. No wild animals suffer from a heart attack but a lion in the zoo, rabbit in the lab and a dog at home gets it. One can prevent a heart attack by observing the laws of nature.

A study of 641 patients in Aug. 8 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, has shown that the risk of developing diabetes over next three years can go down by fifty percent by simple lifestyle interventions. The risk can further drop in the subgroup that also has impaired glucose tolerance at baseline. The interventions involve a healthy diet and regular exercise. A classical diet is low calories, high fiber, zero trans fat and low in refined carbohydrates. Even in full blown diabetics the requirement of drugs can be reduced by 50% over three months by life style interventions. The same is true in hypertension and heart blockages.