Prevention and Lifestyle
M. Boland (IRL), president of the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA) explained the leading role of general practitioners and family doctors when it comes to giving advice to men regarding their own healthcare. Mr. Boland stressed the role of WONCA and its more than 90 member organizations all over the world. For the WONCA World Counsel, there are two key advocacy issues concerning men’s health: smoking cessation and prevention, as well as fighting the ongoing outburst of HIV/AIDS in Africa.
Also, J.E. Altwein (D) stressed the point of life style modification being an absolute “must” to improve on men’s health, especially as by such means illnesses like cardiovasular diseases, metabolic disorders, cancer, bone dysfunction and similar conditions could be hold at bay effectively. “Implementing Secondary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease” was the topic of another highly interesting lecture given by WONCA’s M. Boland. It is known for a fact that cardiovascular disease morbidity and mortality is worse in Ireland than in most other EU countries. As a result, a national strategy has been proposed and secondary prevention identified as a particular priority, whereby the role of nurses and other healthcare professionals must not be underestimated.
Of new ways to assess tobacco (mis)use and nicotine consumption spoke M. Kunze (A) in his lecture. He presented some results of “real life-programs” performed in Austria and set hopes on the (still futuristic) approach of having a vaccine available, which could first be used in relapse prevention and on a long term basis perhaps in primary prevention.
Further, J. Mendive (E) presented the results of clinical studies like the ASCOT trial, explaining how some fascinating new roles for statines may come up in future in order to cut or even prevent heart attacks or strokes in men with diabetes. There might also be some new therapeutical fields for statines still to be discovered, such as mood disorders and other clinical applications.
As arteriosclerosis is considered a “European burden”, as its numbers are ever increasing, H. Weber (A) concentrated in his lecture on “Repair vs. Prevention in Men”. Cardiologists are forced to treat, but due to the lack of compliance and/or the underuse of prevention strategies, the overall MAE rates are bound to remain high, despite the fact that the illness and its effects are rather widely known also by patients.