Is Dementia Becoming a Global Health Concern?

Author(s):  
Sanjana Anand ◽  

Dementia, a collective term used to characterize a group of conditions such as memory loss and the deterioration of problem-solving abilities, is caused by the impairment of brain functions, and is becoming increasingly prevalent around the world. The World Health Alzheimer’s Report estimates that the number of dementia cases “will increase with an ageing population and will reach 66 million by the year 2030 and 115 million by 2050” (Wortmann, 2012). Currently, there are 35.6 million people that have dementia, and it is stressful for both the individual affected and those who care for them. It also has an enormous economic and psychological impact on these people, and in many countries, there are not sufficient efforts taken to spread awareness about dementia (WHO). Dementia has devastating consequences and is becoming a serious challenge and threat to global health.

Author(s):  
Louise Wilkinson ◽  
Toral Gathani

Breast cancer is now the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the world. The most recent global cancer burden figures estimate that there were 2.26 million incident breast cancer cases in 2020 and the disease is the leading cause of cancer mortality in women worldwide. The incidence is strongly correlated with human development, with a large rise in cases anticipated in regions of the world that are currently undergoing economic transformation. Survival, however, is far less favourable in less developed regions. There are a multitude of factors behind disparities in the global survival rates, including delays in diagnosis and lack of access to effective treatment. The World Health Organization’s new Global Breast Cancer Initiative was launched this year to address this urgent global health challenge. It aims to improve survival across the world through three pillars: health promotion, timely diagnosis, and comprehensive treatment and supportive care. In this article, we discuss the key challenges of breast cancer care and control in a global context.


2022 ◽  
pp. 311-332
Author(s):  
Rodolfo Andrade de Carvalho ◽  
Jorge Lima de Magalhães

Health gained a global prominence and became a right declared by the World Health Organization in 1948. In the 21st century, it is understood as a complete well-being of the individual, far beyond the absence of disease. In this context, the right to happiness translates as an expression of the aspirations for the realization of the right to health. Thus, this chapter aims to understand, in the light of the Freudian perspective, the aspects of soul life that lead the individual to the exhausting task of seeking happiness and seeks to reflect the possible contributions that legal science can offer to the improvement of individual well-being as a right health in the context of global health. Freud's theories about the formation of the psychic apparatus, his conception of malaise caused by culture and legal interventions that can possibly contribute to the reduction of individual unhappiness are presented.


Beverages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 79
Author(s):  
Frank Vriesekoop

Food allergies are an important global health concern, with many countries following the World Health Organisation’s guidelines with regards to due labelling of foods and, as such, providing forewarning about the presence of potential allergens to potential consumers. While for some produce, the link to specific allergens might be very clear to most consumers, this is not the case for all produce. People with specific food-related allergies usually know what to look out for, but occasionally, unexpected allergens are present in trusted produce. Beer is known to most to contain barley, which will contain gluten-like proteins that can cause allergic reactions in some people. Similarly, beer might contain sulphites and other potential allergens traditionally associated with beers. This review aims to examine a wide range of allergens that have entered the beer production process in recent years. As a result, examples of beers that contain one or more of the 14 EU-UK listed allergens are described, different allergen regulations in different countries are emphasised and their impact explained, and a number of case studies involving allergic reactions following exposure to and the ingestion of beer are highlighted.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (SPL1) ◽  
pp. 748-752
Author(s):  
Swapnali Khabade ◽  
Bharat Rathi ◽  
Renu Rathi

A novel, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), causes severe acute respiratory syndrome and spread globally from Wuhan, China. In March 2020 the World Health Organization declared the SARS-Cov-2 virus as a COVID- 19, a global pandemic. This pandemic happened to be followed by some restrictions, and specially lockdown playing the leading role for the people to get disassociated with their personal and social schedules. And now the food is the most necessary thing to take care of. It seems the new challenge for the individual is self-isolation to maintain themselves on the health basis and fight against the pandemic situation by boosting their immunity. Food organised by proper diet may maintain the physical and mental health of the individual. Ayurveda aims to promote and preserve the health, strength and the longevity of the healthy person and to cure the disease by properly channelling with and without Ahara. In Ayurveda, diet (Ahara) is considered as one of the critical pillars of life, and Langhana plays an important role too. This article will review the relevance of dietetic approach described in Ayurveda with and without food (Asthavidhi visheshaytana & Lanhgan) during COVID-19 like a pandemic.


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 122-127
Author(s):  
John Harrington

By foregrounding a widened view of the rule of law in transnational legal processes, the works under discussion in this symposium can support innovative critical perspectives on global health law –a field that has gained wide attention due to the spread of COVID-19 around the world (Lander, 2020; Bhatt, 2020). Legal and socio-legal scholars in the decade and a half before the pandemic worked on locating global health law and articulating its underlying principles. Lawrence Gostin's 2014 monograph offers a synoptic view centred on international institutions (e.g. the World Health Organization, World Trade Organization, UN Human Rights Council) and problems (e.g. infectious-disease response, tobacco control), along with an elaboration of its normative basis in universal moral principle and international human rights law (Gostin, 2014). Struggles over access to essential medicines and intellectual property in the early 2000s are, for example, represented in terms of the right to health constraining international trade law. Andreas Fischer-Lescano and Guenther Teubner's 2004 reading is oriented more by social theory than by doctrinal or ethical frames (Fischer-Lescano and Teubner, 2004, pp. 1006, 1008). A functional health regime has ‘differentiated out’, they observe, and operates as a discrete communication system across borders, albeit one that is threatened by the preponderant economic system. On this model, the battle for access to medicines amounts to ensuring, via human rights guarantees, that the rationality of the health system is not replaced by that of its economic rival in legal and policy communications (Fischer-Lescano and Teubner, 2004, pp. 1030, 1046).


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (6) ◽  
pp. 123-129
Author(s):  
Alrahman Joneri

Hyperglycemia is a medical condition in which an increase in glucose levels in the blood exceeds normal limits. Hyperglycemia is one of the typical signs of diabetes mellitus (DM). The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts an increase in the number of people with DM which is a global health threat. Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure, and the leading cause of heart disease and stroke, in adults. Metformin, which is a biguanide group, is recommended by the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and the European Association for the Study of Diabetes as the first-line oral therapy for DM and is the most widely used oral medication worldwide. Metformin can also increase peripheral glucose utilization and ultimately decrease the production of fatty acids and triglycerides. Some of the individual differences that underlie the variation in response to metformin.


Author(s):  
Sholly. CK

Novel corona virus (COVID-19) is an infectious condition, which can be spread directly or indirectly from one person to another and causes respiratory illnesses, range from common cold to acute respiratory syndrome. The first cases of this virus were found in Wuhan, China. According to the World Health Organization, COVID-19 is serious health concern and has higher risk for severe illness and spreading rapidly all over the world.This novel coronavirus was named Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) by WHO in February 2020. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the coronavirus disease 2019 a pandemic, in the year2020 March. A global coordinated effort is needed to stop the further spread of the virus. Among all cases about 92% of the confirmed cases were recorded from China. Initial reports suggest that death rate ranges from 1% to 2% which varies in the study and country. The most of the death have occurred in patients over 50 years of age followed by young children. For the confirmed cases which included both laboratory and clinically diagnosed till now there is no specific antiviral treatment recommended but there is vaccine currently available. Once the virus develops in people, corona viruses can be spread from person to person through respiratory droplets. The viral material hangs out in these droplets and can be breathed into the respiratory tract, where the virus can then lead to an infection. Repercussions of Covid -19 on individuals, families and on front line warriors are countless1.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Kwabena Ameyaw

Abstract Background Malaria in pregnancy is a crucial public health concern due to the enormous risk it poses to maternal and newborn health. The World Health Organisation therefore recommends insecticide-treated net (ITN) for pregnant women. The world over, sub-Saharan Africa bears the highest prevalence of malaria and its associated complications. This study investigated the individual, community and society level factors associated with ITN use among pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa. Methods The study was conducted with Demographic and Health Survey data of 21 sub-Saharan African countries. A total of 17,731 pregnant women who possessed ITN participated in the study. Descriptive computation of ITN use by survey country and socio-demographic characteristics was conducted. Further, five multi-level binary logistic regression models were fitted with MLwiN 3.05 package in STATA. The Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) estimation procedure was used in estimating the parameters whilst the Bayesian Deviance Information Criterion was used for the model fitness test. Results On average, 74.2% pregnant women in SSA used ITN. The highest prevalence of ITN use occurred in Mali (83.7%) whilst the least usage occurred in Namibia (7%). Women aged 30–34 were more likely to use ITN compared with those aged 45–49 [aOR = 1.14; Crl = 1.07–1.50]. Poorest women were less probable to use ITN relative to richest women [aOR = 0.79; Crl = 0.70–0.89]. Compared to women who did not want their pregnancies at all, women who wanted their pregnancies [aOR = 1.06; Crl = 1.04–1.19] were more probable to use ITN. Women in male-headed households had higher likelihood of ITN use compared to those from female-headed households [aOR = 1.28; Crl = 1.19–1.39]. On the whole, 38.1% variation in ITN use was attributable to societal level factors whilst 20.9% variation was attributable to community level factors. Conclusion The study has revealed that in addition to individual level factors, community and society level factors affect ITN use in SSA. In as much as the study points towards the need to incorporate community and societal variations in ITN interventions, active involvement of men can yield better outcome for ITN utilisation interventions in SSA.


Author(s):  
Ken Hyland ◽  
Feng (Kevin) Jiang

Abstract Covid-19, the greatest global health crisis for a century, brought a new immediacy and urgency to international bio-medical research. The pandemic generated intense competition to produce a vaccine and contain the virus, creating what the World Health Organization referred to as an ‘infodemic’ of published output. In this frantic atmosphere, researchers were keen to get their research noticed. In this paper, we explore whether this enthusiasm influenced the rhetorical presentation of research and encouraged scientists to “sell” their studies. Examining a corpus of the most highly cited SCI articles on the virus published in the first seven months of 2020, we explore authors’ use of hyperbolic and promotional language to boost aspects of their research. Our results show a significant increase in hype to stress certainty, contribution, novelty and potential, especially regarding research methods, outcomes and primacy. Our study sheds light on scientific persuasion at a time of intense social anxiety.


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