How to save 43200 lives by 2025 in Belgium? Reduce the risk factors to beat chronic diseases

Published on: 
Thursday, September 27, 2018
Last updated on 2-5-2019 by Admin Drupal

According to the most recent country report of the WHO, written for the 3rd UN High Level Meeting on Noncommunicable Diseases (which is held today in New York), 43200 lives could be saved in Belgium, if we would beat chronic diseases. It might seem an extreme expression, but you should know that chronic problems or non-communicable diseases cause most of the premature deaths in Belgium (i.e. 86% of all deaths). If we can reduce these diseases, we can postpose a lot premature deaths.

Chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes are closely intertwined with our lifestyle. The unhealthier the lifestyle, the higher the risk factors to develop a chronic disease. Some of them are more difficult to control, such as environmental factors (air pollution). But there surely are a lot of amenable risk factors: alcohol consumption, lack of physical activity, nutritional behaviour and smoking.

More information:

The 2018 Country Profile of Noncommunicable Diseases (NCD) by the World Health Organization

Associated health topics: 

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