Fighting disease on a global scale
The idea that the wave of diabetes, heart disease, and cancer breaking over the world is largely the result of wealth and inactivity is not only wrong, it’s counterproductive, says a Harvard research fellow who recently founded a nonprofit organization to fight disease. In the past, such noncommunicable diseases have been attributed to lifestyle because of their links to high-calorie diets in wealthy, increasingly sedentary industrialized nations. But Alessandro Demaio, a fellow at the interfaculty Harvard Global Equity Initiative, takes issue with that description. Instead of wealthy Western businessmen, he says, the typical person suffering a noncommunicable disease today is a woman under 70, living in poverty, most likely in Asia. Demaio sees noncommunicable diseases as likely to be high on the global health agenda after 2015, the deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals, which have guided global health efforts since their establishment in 2002. In the fall, Demaio and a handful of...