TY - JOUR
T1 - Cachexia as a major public health problem
T2 - Frequent, costly, and deadly
AU - Farkas, Jerneja
AU - von Haehling, Stephan
AU - Kalantar-Zadeh, Kamyar
AU - Morley, John E.
AU - Anker, Stefan D.
AU - Lainscak, Mitja
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - Perception of healthy body size and composition differs considerably across the globe, ethnic groups, cultures, and even inside medical community. Although the concept of ideal body weight has evolved over the past decades, the observation that weight loss can have more deleterious effects within a short-term period than weight gain has remained rather consistent. Weight loss, as a prelude to cachexia, occurs frequently in a variety of disease states and meets the requirements of a global public health problem. Consequently, interventions to prevent and control chronic diseases require a comprehensive approach that targets a population as a whole and includes both prevention and treatment strategies. Around the globe, cachexia awareness campaigns and expanding the current public health priorities to highlight the cachexia magnitude and areas of interventions is necessary. Simultaneously, scientific efforts should provide us with more reliable estimates of body wasting and cachexia as well as pathophysiology of cachexia-associated death. As certain proportion of patients will, irrespective of preventive measures, eventually develop cachexia, a quest for effective remedy remains vital.
AB - Perception of healthy body size and composition differs considerably across the globe, ethnic groups, cultures, and even inside medical community. Although the concept of ideal body weight has evolved over the past decades, the observation that weight loss can have more deleterious effects within a short-term period than weight gain has remained rather consistent. Weight loss, as a prelude to cachexia, occurs frequently in a variety of disease states and meets the requirements of a global public health problem. Consequently, interventions to prevent and control chronic diseases require a comprehensive approach that targets a population as a whole and includes both prevention and treatment strategies. Around the globe, cachexia awareness campaigns and expanding the current public health priorities to highlight the cachexia magnitude and areas of interventions is necessary. Simultaneously, scientific efforts should provide us with more reliable estimates of body wasting and cachexia as well as pathophysiology of cachexia-associated death. As certain proportion of patients will, irrespective of preventive measures, eventually develop cachexia, a quest for effective remedy remains vital.
KW - Cachexia
KW - Chronic disease
KW - Prevention
KW - Public health
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84879243471&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84879243471&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s13539-013-0105-y
DO - 10.1007/s13539-013-0105-y
M3 - Article
C2 - 23539127
AN - SCOPUS:84879243471
VL - 4
SP - 173
EP - 178
JO - Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle
JF - Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle
SN - 2190-5991
IS - 3
ER -