One of the challenges of diabetes – and there are many – is that when a person has the disease, it is not obvious to them. It is not uncommon… Read More

What a week it was, September 16 – 22, 2011. Action packed. Heady. Full of monumental meetings and key personalities. Jolts of inspiration and renewed resolve to continue on our journey. Reinforcement that we at Arogya World are doing good work, well. A genuine leg up for our young organization, and a giant step forward for NCDs.

Arogya World announced today a major diabetes prevention mobile health (mHealth) commitment in India, during the 2011 Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting. This initiative, being implemented in association with Nokia, aims to reach one million consumers in rural and urban India over two years, and will raise awareness about diabetes and its prevention through text messages in multiple languages.

September 19, 2011, New York. Today, as world leaders gather at the United Nations for a historic health-focused summit to plan the world’s response to the growing burden of non-communicable… Read More

** This post was originally published on the ONE Blog on September 12, 2011 ** In the context of fighting extreme poverty and preventable disease, which are at the core of ONE’s mission, I want to discuss here the global crisis of chronic non-communicable diseases, or NCDs — a set of largely preventable diseases that are intricately linked with poverty.

Though all people the world over are susceptible to the threat of these chronic diseases, this is a women’s health rights and empowerment issue because these diseases impact girls and women differently. At the same time, women are a crucial part of the solution to this crisis.

The acronym may be new to you. And you may not have heard of them grouped this way, but NCDs are diseases like cancer, diabetes, respiratory and cardiovascular illness. The kind of sick you get for a long time. That didn’t come from a mosquito, or a bad drink of water, or physical contact with someone infected. The kind of sick that… wait for it… causes two out of every three deaths worldwide.

We did our part to prepare for the UN Summit, but did our elected representatives in governments around the world really do theirs? By not agreeing to final language about what the world should do to tackle NCDs, our public leaders broke our trust.

This year, we must leverage the power of women to ignite action against one of the greatest health and development challenges of the century: chronic non-communicable diseases, or NCDs.

Americans by and large consume too much salt, more than twice the 1 teaspoon they should each day. But is reducing salt really good for your health? The answer is a resounding YES!