I was privileged to participate in and represent the ACC at the UN Summit on Non-Communicable Diseases last Thursday at their headquarters in New York City. The UN and the WHO have understandably focused most of their substantial global health efforts, along with the large private philanthropies, on communicable diseases -- mainly on HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, and nutritional deficiencies and disease related to abject poverty and hunger.

These causes are still important. But, we are really just learning how many people globally with communicable diseases also suffer from preventable and treatable non-communicable diseases -- cardiovascular disease, cancer and other chronic diseases. The summit brought some disturbing facts to life: 

• The world for the 1st time has more overweight than underweight people, and more deaths of adults annually than of children.
  
  
• There are now more urban than rural people in the world -- and this contributes to changes in diet, exercise, and lifestyle that have caused non-communicable diseases to increase alarmingly.
  
  
• There are 36 million preventable non-communicable disease deaths globally, with the biggest rise in Africa -- non-communicable disease mortality has become far more common than communicable disease, with rapid growth rates. Tobacco use causes 1/3 of all global cancer.
  
  
• Although oncology, neurology, pulmonary and endocrinology are all important globally, cardiovascular disease is the biggest threat -- tobacco, diet, increased diabetes all contribute. CV disease kills more people globally than any other cause.

Speakers at the event pointed out that there are lessons to be applied from global efforts to eradicate communicable diseases to how to similarly impact non-communicable diseases. After the summit, I met with World Heart Federation CEO Johanna Ralston and many other international leaders to discuss how we can leverage ACC’s expertise and the 5,000 international FACCs around the world -- who represent the most prominent cardiologists in more than 100 countries -- to be able to collaborate globally on reducing mortality related to non-communicable diseases, including how we measure progress and ROI on future investments. The main UN session on this topic will occur in New York in September. The ACC will be there in force. The world needs far more resources to address this growing crisis.
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