The Future of Cardiometabolic Disease
This week we are looking at unpacking what is still the greatest contributor in terms of burden of non-communicable disease in most of this world – cardiometabolic disease. We are also trying to get a glimpse of how management of these conditions is likely to change in this fast evolving environment.
Cardiometabolic diseases comprise all of cardiovascular diseases (like strokes and heart attacks) as well as all of metabolic diseases (like type 2 diabetes) and a whole host of other endocrine and inflammatory disorders.
As we have developed an increased understanding of these diseases, we have now appreciated that the risk factors that contribute to increasing the chances of developing them are very similar in many cases. For example, obesity increases your chances of developing cardiovascular diseases as well as type 2 diabetes as well as developing certain cancers like breast cancer. Furthermore, these common risk factors seem also to be the same as the ones that drive other diseases as for example, many renal diseases as well as many of the dementias.
There is a problem however in that In western medicine we seem to be still be wedded to the existing ways of working which seem to imply that all these conditions are distinct. We still operate whereby cardiologists only concentrate on cardiovascular disease whilst endocrine specialists concentrate on endocrine diseases like diabetes. There is no doubt this approach has advantages, in that our understanding of these diseases has deepened significantly and outcomes improved.
This misses out on the fact our understanding around interconnectedness also means that people very rarely only exhibit symptoms of only one of these diseases but tend to become more multimorbid especially exacerbated by ageing. As a result of this we are only starting to understand that we need to change the way we think of managing these conditions. The precision health and medicine approach is the solution we are looking for. Treating people using personalised approaches and thinking life course is the route to this and we are devoting a whole session at the Radical Health Festival to explore this further including the role of genomics, phenomics, behaviour change and gamification. This is concluded by us taking a look at the changes we can expect to follow in the medium term.
Come and contribute to the emerging narrative – see you in Helsinki!
– Dr. Charles Alessi, Chief Clinical Officer of éditohealth and Steering Committee member of Radical Health Festival
