The article by Toby Cosgrove has highlighted three major diseases that cause death and disability with high cost of human lives and resources for society.

The title of the article is ‘Three Diseases That Should Frighten You’ and this is the link: http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130517193032-205372152-three-diseases-that-should-frighten-you

The first consideration that I do about this article is full agreement on the three diseases mentioned by Cosgrove: type 2 diabetes, lung cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and their serious complications.

My second remark concerns the cause of the increase of these pathologies. Maybe we should be more afraid of the causes of the disease rather than the disease itself. If we look carefully many illnesses have a common cause that can be attributed to three factors: obesity, smoking and lack of physical activity. We need to fight the root causes. How many of these conditions cause serious and disabling pathologies? Obesity, smoking and physical inactivity are diseases and we must treat them as you treat a disease: with a therapy. The effort of preventive medicine should be directed to to the eradication, or at least, the reduction of these lifestyle habits that cause illness.

Over recent years we have witnessed the improvement of results in acute myocardial infarction for the social and medical awareness on this topic. The establishment of Task Forces has led to the knowledge and early treatment of MI, with tangible results.

Along the same organizational guidelines, Governments and Medical Associations, should focus their efforts on these three subjects to overcome: obesity, smoking, reduction of physical activity.

Maybe we should change the original title to ‘Three Risk Factors that Should Frighten You‘.