Part 1. Vocabulary
suffer |
/ˈsʌfɚ/ v. - to
experience pain, illness, or injury He died
instantly and did not suffer. |
diagnose |
/ˈdajəgˌnoʊs/
v. - to
recognize (a disease, illness, etc.) by examining someone The doctor
was unable to diagnose the skin condition. |
caseload |
/ˈkeɪsˌloʊd/
n. - the number
or a number of cases handled by a court, social worker, etc. We have a
heavy/light caseload today. |
affluence |
/ˈæfluwəns/
n. - having a large
amount of money and owning many expensive things They rose
from poverty to affluence. |
Modifiable
|
/ˈmä-də-ˌfī-ə-bəl/
adj. - you can
take measures to change them: alter / change “There are
"modifiable risk factors" linked to lifestyle” |
Part 2.
Article Reading
GENEVA:
Nearly 1.3 billion people globally suffer from hypertension, a silent killer often driven by obesity that increases the risk of heart disease, stroke
and kidney disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday (Aug
24).
Hypertension
can be easily diagnosed by monitoring blood pressure, and treated with
low-cost drugs, but half of the affected people are unaware of their condition
which is left untreated, the WHO and Imperial College London said in a joint study published in The Lancet.
While
hypertension rates have changed little in 30 years, the caseload has
shifted to lower-income countries as wealthy nations have brought it largely
under control, the study said.
"It is
far from being a condition of affluence, it's very much a condition of
poverty," Majid Ezzati, professor of global environmental health at
Imperial College London, told a news briefing.
"Many
parts of sub-Saharan Africa, parts of South Asia, some of the Pacific Island
nations, they are still not getting the treatments that are needed," he
said.
Some 17.9
million people died in 2019 from cardiovascular diseases, accounting for one in
three global deaths, with hypertension a major factor, according to the WHO.
"We
know that the treatment is cheap, it's low-cost medicines. But there is a need
to include them in the UHC (universal health coverage) so this is not a cost
for the patient, it has to be covered by the insurance system," said Bente
Mikkelsen, director of the WHO's department of non-communicable diseases.
Apart from
genetic risk factors for hypertension, there are "modifiable risk
factors" linked to lifestyle, Mikkelsen said.
These
include unhealthy diets, physical inactivity, tobacco and alcohol consumption,
uncontrolled diabetes, and being overweight, she said.
Referring to
obesity, she said: "This is really the tsunami of the risk factors".
Read full article @ https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/world/high-blood-pressure-driven-obesity-poverty-who-study-277046