“This report provides further evidence of the dramatic increase of the conditions that trigger heart ailments and other chronic diseases, particularly in poor and developing countries,” said WHO Director General Margaret Chan.

Chan said the worrying fact that “in some African countries, half of the adult population suffer hypertension,” which is why the WHO wants to call attention to “the growing impact of non-communicable diseases.”

For the first time the WHO’s statistical study of 194 countries includes information about high levels in men and women of blood pressure and blood glucose, which reveals, among other things, that the diagnosis and treatment of these ailments flights have reduced the problem in the first world.

The concern of the organization is that in places like Africa, where not apply these preventive measures, most people with these ailments do not know they are at “high risk of death and disability from heart attack or stroke” .

For the first time also includes information on blood glucose levels, indicating that while the average prevalence is around 10% to one third of the population in some Pacific countries suffer from this ailment.

WHO points out that if left untreated, diabetes can cause cardiovascular disease, blindness and kidney failure.

The third major concern is the overweight, because “in all regions of the world, the number of obese doubled between 1980 and 2008,” said Ties Boerma, director of the Department of Health Statistics and Information Systems, WHO .

“Today, some 500 million people (12% of world population) are considered obese,” according Boerma.

The highest level of obesity was recorded in the region of the Americas (26% of adults) and the lowest in Southeast Asia (3% of adults), a higher proportion of obese women than men, with the impact this is in risk of diabetes, heart problems and cancer.

The conclusion is that non-communicable diseases are currently the cause of two thirds of deaths in the world, so that WHO is working on a monitoring framework and a set of voluntary targets to prevent and control the problem.

The report will be one of the issues addressed in the next World Health Assembly of WHO in Geneva (between days 21 and 26 May), also will reflect the progress made.

According to WHO, since more than a decade ago established the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of the UN, “has made substantial progress in reducing infant and maternal mortality due to HIV, tuberculosis and malaria. ”

Child malnutrition is the underlying cause of approximately 35% of deaths of children under 5 years, although in the case of developing countries has been some improvement between 1990 and 2010 the proportion of children in this age group who had weight lower than recommended increased from 29 to 18%.

In terms of reducing mortality among children under five years in the past two decades was reduced by 35%, from 88 deaths per thousand live births in 1990 (a total of 10 million children) to 57 per per thousand (7.6 million) in 2010.

“The reductions have been particularly impressive in deaths from diarrhea and measles,” said the organization. Especially significant is the fact about Africa, which produces half of the deaths of children under five years, since the reduction rate decreased from 1.5% (1990-2010) to 2.8% (2005-2010).

The data reduction is also important in regard to the number of maternal deaths (from 543 thousand in 1990 to 287,000 in 2010), but the WHO says that “the rate of reduction is only half what is necessary to achieve relevant objectives of the MDGs. “

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An investigation led by neuroscientist Akhilesh Reddy, University of Cambridge (United Kingdom), shows for the first time that so-called biological clock evolved in much the same since the beginning of life in all organisms, including bacteria, and its characteristics are similar.

“It was thought that the circadian clock of the various agencies had evolved separately, and each was controlled by different genes and proteins. Our work unifies the way that the internal clock keeps the time,” he said.

The circadian clock is responsible for the regulation of many biological processes such as appetite, sleep and wakefulness is present in all cancer cells and less in the works thanks to the production of a protein called peroxiredoxin.

Researchers associated with alterations in this protein disorders such as obesity, diabetes, insomnia, depression, heart disease and cancer, so expect this study will allow further progress on these diseases.

In a study released last year, Reddy and failed to show that humans were not the sole possessors of the biological clock, but could also be found in all other organisms whose DNA is found in the nucleus of cells, such as animals and plants .

By observing the chemical changes experienced by the peroxiredoxin during the day and night in mice, fruit flies, fungi and bacteria, his team discovered now that even the most primitive forms of life, including organisms that lack nuclei, also are regulated by this internal clock.

“It is very likely that all living beings have a similar mechanism for measuring time in cycles of 24 hours, which is a completely new finding will allow us to investigate circadian rhythms in organisms in which it was not suspected that they had” According to Reddy.

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The latest statistics from the World Health Organization include first blood pressure levels and glucose, two risk factors for diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Among the findings released Wednesday contained 29.2% of males and 24.8% of women with high blood pressure, and 9.8% of males and 9.2% of women with increasing levels of blood glucose.

The authorities responsible for compiling the statistics of 194 nations for the health agency of the UN say that rich nations have exported some of its risk factors in the developing world.

Dr. Ties Boerma, director of health statistics from WHO, said snuff consumption, unhealthy diets and physical inactivity “are no longer limited disease to wealthy countries.”

But the spread of smoking and the inclination to processed foods and salt also affects populations with higher longevity.

“Globalization, urbanization and aging populations are spread throughout the world, so that four out of five deaths from the so-called diseases of affluence occur in low and middle income,” said Boerma. “It is also a victim of own success.”

Colin Mathers, who coordinates the WHO statistics on mortality and disease, says obesity “increases everywhere,” even as many children lack sufficient food. WHO says in its latest report that child malnutrition remains the underlying cause of 35% of all deaths among children under 5 years.

But there is good news, and Boerma said Mathers.

Boerma cited “significant progress” in the fight against infectious diseases and malnutrition, as the proportion of children in developing countries that have a low weight dropped from 29% in 1990 to 18% in 2010.

The number of women dying during childbirth declined by 47% during the same period, from 543 thousand in 1990 to 287,000 in 2010. That means an average of 3.1% less each year.

The mortality rate among children dropped 35% between 1990 and 2010, says WHO. However, almost 20% of deaths of children under five years (mostly from pneumonia and diarrhea) can be prevented with vaccines.

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The most ambitious attempt to date is announced an international study, which will follow up on an experimental drug to determine if it can stop the disease in people who are healthy but have a genetic predisposition to Alzheimer’s type than there is a family history.

If so, this is encouraging evidence that perhaps the most common Alzheimer’s also preventable.

A second study will examine whether a nasal spray that sends insulin to the brain helps people with early memory problems, based on other research linking diabetes with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

The new approach comes as the administration of President Barack Obama takes the first national strategy to combat the epidemic of Alzheimer’s, which is spreading. The plan is to have effective treatments for 2025.

“We are in an exceptional moment” more important discoveries about Alzheimer’s in recent months than in recent years, said Tuesday Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH, for its acronym in English).

However, a meeting this week of the leading scientists in this disease in the world made it clear that achieving the 2025 deadline will require developing a mix of treatments for the different ways that Alzheimer’s harms the brain, in the same way is given a combination of drugs to treat hypertension or HIV.

Perhaps more importantly, require testing potential drugs before the attack Alzheimer full force, when it would be too late to accomplish much.

After all, Alzheimer’s begins destroying brain at least a decade before presenting memory problems, and doctors are not waiting for the worst symptoms before treating heart disease, cancer or diabetes, said Dr. Reisa Sperling, of Harvard Medical School.

“Once, the train station degeneration, may be too late to try to stop it,” said Sperling. “We need to define the crucial margin for intervention.”

Future therapies are far from being the only goal of the first National Plan Against Alzheimer’s. It is an approach with two branches, which also promises to provide better support to the bereaved families along the way.

“You need to do more and be required to do so now, because people with Alzheimer’s disease and their loved ones and carers need help now,” said Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, announcing the Plan.

Among the first steps is a new website at the address www.alzheimers.gov that Sebelius is considered complete for families and offers easy to understand information about dementia, and links to resources in their own communities.

The government will offer free training for doctors and other health personnel on how to detect early signs of Alzheimer’s and caring for these patients.

This summer will launch a campaign to improve awareness of the public about Alzheimer’s important to reduce the stigma that helps whip up that evil is diagnosed in late and the isolation felt by many families affected.

There is no cure. The five drugs on the market only reduce some symptoms temporarily.

Meanwhile, there are steps to protect the brain, which anyone can make and that would be useful, said Dr. Carl Cotman of the University of California at Irvine, during Tuesday’s meeting of the NIH.

The recommendations are:

-The brain is like a muscle, you have to exercise it. Intellectual stimulation and social help build what is called “cognitive reserve” means the ability to resist declines caused by aging and dementia.

-Physical exercise is also crucial. Clogged arteries reduce blood flow to the brain and people who are less active at midlife have a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease as they age.

“Every time one’s heart is healthier, the brain,” said Dr. Elizabeth Head of the University of Kentucky.

And do not forget the diet, he said. The same foods that are healthy for the heart are to the brain, such as omega-3 fatty acids found in fish.

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The Spanish Heart Foundation (ESF) made this warning in a statement on the occasion of the commemoration of World Hypertension Day, a disease that in Spain 11 million people (between 25% and 30% of the adult population) .

Hypertension damages the structure of the cerebral vessels in the white matter, located beneath the cerebral cortex, said this organization.

Altered blood flow and decreased oxygenation damage myelin that covers nerve fibers, which breaks the circuit and disconnects the frontal lobes affects executive functions and committing the complex mental processes such as problem solving and decision- decisions.

The FEC cites a study published in Archives of Neurology and conducted by researchers at Columbia University (USA), which showed that patients with hypertension had a 40% increased risk of developing mild cognitive impairment and 70% more danger of developing the non-amnesic, which implies no significant memory problems.

Experts are investigating whether antihypertensive treatment could prevent the onset of cognitive impairment, according to the FEC, which says that another study published in The Lancet Neurology has shown that people who are treated for hypertension by 13% reduces the incidence of cognitive impairment.

The Spanish Heart Foundation warns also that hypertensive individuals have between four and six times greater risk of stroke, and that a third of people with hypertension do not know, while another third do not have good control.

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The publication of the American Heart Association reports a study of more than 6 thousand people shows that participants who had a relative with high blood pressure, but were in a good shape had a risk a 34% lower themselves to develop high blood pressure.

This difference was found in relation to participants who had a similar family history, but whose fitness was lower.

“It’s important to understand the role of family history and physical condition,” said Robin P. Shook, Arnold School of Public Health at the University of Southern

California.

The study received funding from the National Institutes of Health and a grant, without limitation, the Coca-Cola.

“The results of this research show a practical message: even a very realistic and moderate exercise? For example, 150 minutes of brisk walking a week, provides enormous health benefits, particularly for people predisposed to hypertension due to family history, “said Shook.

Previous studies have shown that family history is responsible for 35 to 65% of the variability in blood pressure between children with varying levels of risk depending on which parent has developed and age of onset of the problem.

The researchers followed a group of 6 000 278 people, predominantly white, aged between 20 and 80, over an average of 4.7 years.

Thirty-three participants indicated that their father or mother had hypertension.

When he began the study all participants were healthy, had no medical diagnosis of hypertension, and marked by at least 85% of predicted maximum heart rate for their age.

The researchers determined the cardiorespiratory fitness of the participants using an exercise test on the treadmill that reached the maximum for each participant.

During the 1545 survey participants indicated they had developed hypertension.

The researchers found that, taken together people with and without family history of high blood pressure, high fitness levels appeared related to a 42% lower risk of developing hypertension.

Moderate levels of physical fitness lowered the risk by 26%.

People who had a low level of physical fitness and a relative with hypertension showed a 70% greater risk of developing hypertension, compared with people with good fitness and no family history of hypertension.

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The humanitarian organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) addressed this issue publicly, days before it starts in Geneva World Health Organization (WHO), to be attended by more than a hundred ministers of the sector that are on the agenda approval of a “Plan of Action for a Global Vaccination.”

The green light is expected to give this plan will serve to implement the project of the “Decade of Vaccines”, which is expected to serve to promote immunization programs, particularly in parts of the world where children still do not receive even more essential vaccines.

In this regard, MSF criticized the plan that WHO promotes not solve fundamental problems such as those related to the price and lack of adaptation of the vaccine to the contexts in which they must be used.

“Most currently available vaccines are administered by injections that require skilled health personnel, which may be difficult in countries where, in itself, these workers is limited,” the agency in a report on this issue and published.

This document explains that to complete the cycle of vaccination, infants and their caregivers must go to the vaccination sites five times during the first year of life, making it difficult for those living in remote areas and can not afford transport costs.

An additional difficulty is that most vaccines must be kept at low temperatures, which becomes a real logistical challenge in countries where the cooling capacity is limited and uncertain electricity supplies.

“There are few initiatives that involve investing in developing vaccines that are better adapted and easy to administer. It is worrying that the new Plan of Action does not put more emphasis on this need,” MSF regrets.

Recalling that the number of children who are left without basic vaccinations each year is equal to four times those born in the European Union, experts from the organization that influence to extend coverage requires a “new approaches” and products easier to use.

“Countries are about to endorse a plan that does not go far enough,” said the humanitarian organization, working in conflict zones and the world’s poorest, where he regularly responds to epidemics of preventable diseases through vaccination.

One of the most serious because of its size was that of measles occurred in 2010 in 28 countries in Africa including the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where 100 000 cases were recorded in ten months, MSF vaccinated four million children.

In some parts of the world, the immunization rate is maintained at very low levels, as in the Indian state of Bihar, where 60% of babies do not get fully vaccinated, while progress is extremely slow, in addition India in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Pakistan and the DRC.

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The study by professors at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) suggests that sudden death from heart attack was the second most common cause of death among HIV-positive, after AIDS.

The researchers analyzed medical records of more than 800 patients from 2000 San Francisco General Hospital with HIV, between April 2000 and August 2009, of which approximately 8% died during the four years of the period studied.

15% of patients who died, died from causes related to heart disease, according to the study, and of that group 86% died from a sudden heart attack.

“The fact that the vast majority of deaths were sudden cardiac condition is surprising, and implies that we as physicians should be aware of this potential health problem among patients with HIV”, said in a press release released by the university, Priscilla Hsue, one of the researchers.

“Our results also highlight many things I still do not know about HIV and sudden death,” said Hsue, who said that should be investigated whether these patients die of coronary artery disease not recognized and how they can identify patients at risk to prevent.

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As reported by the Nationwide Children’s Hospital, four hours a child under three years is treated in an emergency room because of an injury related to the use of bottles, pacifiers and cups cover (“sippy cups”).

“Previous reports have focused mainly on babies. However, we found that about two thirds of the lesions examined in our study were among children under one year of age who are just learning to walk and are more likely to fall,” said Sarah Keim, author of the report and a researcher at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

The report, which was published in the online version of Pediatrics in June, found that 86% of injuries occurred while children ran or walked with the object in the mouth and that 70% resulted in a laceration.

“Because it has been very little research in this area, many parents may not think about the risk of injury with these products,” said Keim, who is also professor at Ohio State University College of Medicine.

This is the first study evaluating a representative U.S. sample of injuries associated with these products that were treated in emergency rooms in the country.

According to the study by the Center for Biobehavioral Health and Center for Injury Research and Policy of Nationwide Children’s Hospital, who examined injuries recorded between 1991 and 2010 at least 45 000 398 children under three were treated for this cause in the U.S. .

The researchers said the bottles as the leading cause of injury in children with 65.8%, followed by 19.9% ​​pacifiers.

Both the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD) recommend moving from the bottle without cover to vessels where the child is 12 months to prevent accidents and promote healthier eating habits.

“Educating parents and people who are in charge of the children about the importance of helping children to leave these products at the recommended ages for the AAP and the AAPD could prevent up to 80% of injuries related to bottles , pacifiers and cups cover (sippy cups), “said the researcher.

It also recommends Keim accustom children from an early age to make their drinks while seated to prevent such injuries.

The expert also advised to help small to stop using the pacifier from six months to avoid accidents with these once you start walking.

The report compiled data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System(Neiss, for its acronym in English) which is operated by the Consumer Product Safety Commission U.S..

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