Biomedical Research, A Tool to Address the Health Issues that Affect African Populations.

Traditionally, biomedical research endeavors in low to middle resources countries have focused on communicable diseases. However, data collected over the past 20 years by the World Health Organization (WHO) show a significant increase in the number of people suffering from non-communicable diseases (e.g. heart disease, diabetes, cancer and pulmonary diseases). Within the coming years, WHO predicts significant decreases in communicable diseases while non-communicable diseases are expected to double in low and middle income countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The predicted increase in the non-communicable diseases population could be economically burdensome for the basic healthcare infrastructure of countries that lack resources to address this emerging disease burden. Biomedical research could stimulate development of healthcare and biomedical infrastructure. If this development is sustainable, it provides an opportunity to alleviate the burden of both communicable and non-communicable diseases through diagnosis, prevention and treatment. In this paper, we discuss how research using biomedical technology, especially genomics, has produced data that enhances the understanding and treatment of both communicable and non-communicable diseases in sub-Saharan Africa. We further discuss how scientific development can provide opportunities to pursue research areas responsive to the African populations. We limit our discussion to biomedical research in the areas of genomics due to its substantial impact on the scientific community in recent years however, we also recognize that targeted investments in other scientific disciplines could also foster further development in African countries

The burden of non communicable diseases in developing countries

Background: By the dawn of the third millennium, non communicable diseases are sweeping the entire globe, with an increasing trend in developing countries where, the transition imposes more constraints to deal with the double burden of infective and non-infective diseases in a poor environment characterised by ill-health systems. By 2020, it is predicted that these diseases will be causing seven out of every 10 deaths in developing countries. Many of the non communicable diseases can be prevented by tackling associated risk factors. Methods: Data from national registries and international organisms are collected, compared and analyzed. The focus is made on the growing burden of non communicable diseases in developing countries. Results: Among non communicable diseases, special attention is devoted to cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancer and chronic pulmonary diseases. Their burden is affecting countries worldwide but with a growing trend in developing countries. Preventive strategies must take into account the growing trend of risk factors correlated to these diseases. Conclusion: Non communicable diseases are more and more prevalent in developing countries where they double the burden of infective diseases. If the present trend is maintained, the health systems in low-and middle-income countries will be unable to support the burden of disease. Prominent causes for heart disease, diabetes, cancer and pulmonary diseases can be prevented but urgent (preventive) actions are needed and efficient strategies should deal seriously with risk factors like smoking, alcohol, physical inactivity and western diet

Communicable behavior of non-communicable diseases

Communicability of non- communicable diseases can be explained using the prototype of non- communicable diseases. The concept can be further extended to other non- communicable diseases. Diabetes mellitus (DM) is regarded as the prototype of non-communicable diseases. Its subtype, type 2 DM is usually associated with obesity. Obesity, in turn, can be attributed to deranged eating habits and lack of physical activity. Eating habits of a person bears a close resemblance to the parental eating habits. Other factors contributing to obesity like alcoholism can also be transmitted from parents to child. Smoking, another factor implicated in DM, can be picked as a habit from peer group as well as family. All these factors implicated directly or indirectly in the pathogenesis of DM are actually components of lifestyle. These lifestyle components can be transmitted both in an inter-generation and intra-generation fashion. And so the chances of transmission of DM (a lifestyle disease) in the same fashion cannot be ruled out

Chronic non-communicable diseases

This chapter will examine the current actions, including lifestyle measures, for the prevention and management of non-communicable diseases within a South African context. It will also focus on the biological, behavioural and social determinants of health. Interventions and initiatives directed at primary, secondary and tertiary prevention of chronic non-communicable diseases are also discussed. This chapter ends with recommended lifestyle changes, which can be taken to influence the adoption of healthy lifestyles, and therefore reduce the risks for chronic non-communicable diseases.Non

Women and non communicable diseases (chronic conditions)

Non-communicable diseases (cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory conditions, and musculo-skeletal conditions) are the number one cause of death and disablement for women and men globally and in Australia, with increasing recognition that women and men experience those conditions differently. This position paper examines the gender dimensions of those diseases to raise awareness, and to inform prevention and treatment guidelines. Building on the inequities for women documented in the AWHN Position Paper on Women’s Health and Wellbeing, this paper highlights the specific areas where gender blindness is occurring and the areas where change is needed. Despite the prevalence of Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) among women, there has been little emphases and even less action, on the differences that women experience in these diseases. Most guidelines and policies on NCDs are gender neutral. This has meant that women with non-communicable diseases have not received the level of support and services needed to ensure the best possible outcomes or that necessary research and education into gender differences has been funded. The lack of research into gender differences and the consequent lack of education for health providers and the population generally, potentially promotes poorer outcomes for women and increases gender inequities. When there is mounting evidence that women’s experience of NCDs is different to that of men’s experience, the gender neutrality of policies, research and education programs contributes to gender inequities. The impact of NCDs on women’s lives, the differences in risk factors for women than for men and the social determinants of NCDs are highlighted. Specific risks include, that: Lung cancer is responsible for more women’s deaths than breast cancer although more women are diagnosed with breast cancer than lung cancer Mortality rates from lung cancer in women are continuing to rise while they have plateaued or are dropping among men Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) occurs at lower levels of exposure to tobacco smoking in women than men women with diabetes have a higher risk of stroke than their male counterparts women with diabetes have poorer survival after stroke than men. This paper also highlights the low rate of women in research trials and the low levels of reporting of sex-disaggregated findings. These indicate that treatment recommendations are more generalisable for males than females and the research benefits are therefore greater for men. In turn, this accords a lower status in research to women’s health. Failure to act on gender differences in non-communicable disease costs lives. It is no longer satisfactory for prevention and treatment guidelines to remain gender neutral. Leadership from governments and peak health bodies is required to drive change in both policy and research. Understanding the ways in which gender interacts with NCDs will be enhanced by explicitly mainstreaming gender in policy, research, treatment guidelines and professional and public education. This paper recommends actions that can be taken to redress these problems, and achieve gender aware, gender sensitive and gender transformative care for women. &nbsp

Presymptomatic risk assessment for chronic non-communicable diseases

The prevalence of common chronic non-communicable diseases (CNCDs) far overshadows the prevalence of both monogenic and infectious diseases combined. All CNCDs, also called complex genetic diseases, have a heritable genetic component that can be used for pre-symptomatic risk assessment. Common single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that tag risk haplotypes across the genome currently account for a non-trivial portion of the germ-line genetic risk and we will likely continue to identify the remaining missing heritability in the form of rare variants, copy number variants and epigenetic modifications. Here, we describe a novel measure for calculating the lifetime risk of a disease, called the genetic composite index (GCI), and demonstrate its predictive value as a clinical classifier. The GCI only considers summary statistics of the effects of genetic variation and hence does not require the results of large-scale studies simultaneously assessing multiple risk factors. Combining GCI scores with environmental risk information provides an additional tool for clinical decision-making. The GCI can be populated with heritable risk information of any type, and thus represents a framework for CNCD pre-symptomatic risk assessment that can be populated as additional risk information is identified through next-generation technologies.Comment: Plos ONE paper. Previous version was withdrawn to be updated by the journal's pdf versio

Hubungan Tingkat Literasi Kesehatan dengan Perilaku Pencegahan PTM Pada Remaja di Kabupaten Semarang

Incidence of non-communicable diseases is a health problem that causes morbidity, disability, mortality, and incurring huge costs of healthcare. The incidence of non- communicable diseases it’s not only in adults and elders, but also in the adolescent age group. Efforts to reduce the incidence rate of non-communicable diseases is the implementation behavior prevention of non-communicable diseases that are CERDIK and PHBS behavior. Improvement behavior prevention of non-communicable diseases can be influenced by health literacy level that includes of aspects access information, knowledge, understanding, and decision-making related to health information. This study was an observational analytic, with a cross-sectional design, sampling technique used Snowball sampling, total sample were 387 adolescents aged 15 – 18 years. The instrument used a questionnaire, the type of analysis was Chi-Square test Based on data analysis, there is 55% of respondents with high health literacy level, good categories for health information access (61,5%), good categories knowledge (55,3%), good categories understanding (46,3%), could take decision-related to health information (50,9%), and had a good behavior prevention of non-communicable diseases (46%). The value of chi-squares test is p = 0.000, which is a significant relationship between the health literacy level and behavior prevention for non-communicable diseases. From the results can be include that health literacy level in adolescents affects the implementation behavior prevention of non-communicable diseases

Hubungan Tingkat Literasi Kesehatan dengan Perilaku Pencegahan PTM Pada Remaja di Kabupaten Semarang

Incidence of non-communicable diseases is a health problem that causes morbidity, disability, mortality, and incurring huge costs of healthcare. The incidence of non- communicable diseases it’s not only in adults and elders, but also in the adolescent age group. Efforts to reduce the incidence rate of non-communicable diseases is the implementation behavior prevention of non-communicable diseases that are CERDIK and PHBS behavior. Improvement behavior prevention of non-communicable diseases can be influenced by health literacy level that includes of aspects access information, knowledge, understanding, and decision-making related to health information. This study was an observational analytic, with a cross-sectional design, sampling technique used Snowball sampling, total sample were 387 adolescents aged 15 – 18 years. The instrument used a questionnaire, the type of analysis was Chi-Square test Based on data analysis, there is 55% of respondents with high health literacy level, good categories for health information access (61,5%), good categories knowledge (55,3%), good categories understanding (46,3%), could take decision-related to health information (50,9%), and had a good behavior prevention of non-communicable diseases (46%). The value of chi-squares test is p = 0.000, which is a significant relationship between the health literacy level and behavior prevention for non-communicable diseases. From the results can be include that health literacy level in adolescents affects the implementation behavior prevention of non-communicable diseases

Knowledge and History of Non Communicable Diseases Among Housewives in the Year 2013 Ogan Ilir-south Sumatera-Indonesia

Background: Indonesia as a developing country experiencing epidemiologic transition in which communicable diseases are still main concern in Indonesia, while non-communicable diseases (degenerative) is starting to increase and to be major cause of death. Degenerative diseases are caused by many risk factors including lifestyle, eating habits, smoking, physical inactivity, genetics and other causes. Basic Health Research in 2007 showed the prevalence of the disease in Indonesia among other degenerative joint disease (30.3%), hypertension (29.8%), stroke (0.8%), heart (7.2%), diabetes mellitus (1,1%), and cancer (0.4%).Methods: This research is a descriptive study with a quantitative approach. The study design used was a cross sectional study. The samples in this study were 99 housewives in Ogan Ilir. Sampling technique in this study is a cluster random sampling to select four villages as clusters. The analyses conducted in this study are univariate analysis and correlation tests.Results: The results of this study were 29 (29.3%) of respondents had received counseling on non-communicable diseases, 40.4% of respondents considered overweight (obesity) can reduce the risk of non-communicable diseases, 79.8% knew that reducing caffeine consumption may decrease the risk of non-communicable diseases, and 77% know that reducing smoking can reduce the risk of non-communicable diseases. The disease is the most common rheumatic respondents (20.2%), traffic accidents (19.2), and hypertension (17.2%). Non-communicable diseases most suffered by the elderly respondents were hypertension (42.4%), arthritis (38.4%), and heart (19.2%). Correlation test results demonstrate a positive correlation between the respondent and the history of disease in the elderly (r = 0.172).Conclusion: Health promotion in order to improve the knowledge of the risk factors of non-communicable diseases in the housewife needs to be done both through education and the mass media. This encourages housewives to avoid the risk factors of non-communicable diseases which mainly caused by unhealthy eating patterns