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Nutrition policy critical to optimize response to climate, public health crises

The effects of unanticipated crises on health care and first-responder systems are reflected in climate-fueled environmental emergencies, to which human resilience is diminished by our chronic disease epidemic. For example, people who depend on specialized medications, like refrigerated insulin for...

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Autor principal: Rifkin, Mark E.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10469017/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37662592
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2023.1118753
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author Rifkin, Mark E.
author_facet Rifkin, Mark E.
author_sort Rifkin, Mark E.
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description The effects of unanticipated crises on health care and first-responder systems are reflected in climate-fueled environmental emergencies, to which human resilience is diminished by our chronic disease epidemic. For example, people who depend on specialized medications, like refrigerated insulin for diabetes, will likely face additional challenges in receiving treatment and care during extreme heat, floods, disasters, and other adverse events. These circumstances may be compounded by staff and equipment shortages, lack of access to fresh food, and inadequate healthcare infrastructure in the wake of a disaster. Simply put, our health care and first-response systems struggle to meet the demands of chronic disease without such crises and may be fundamentally unable to adequately function with such crises present. However, nutrition’s primacy in preventing and controlling chronic disease directly enhances individual and public resilience in the face of existential threats. Highlighting the shared diet-related etiology clearly demonstrates the need for a national policy response to reduce the disease burden and potentiate mitigation of the sequelae of climate risks and capacity limits in our food and health care systems. Accordingly, this article proposes four criteria for nutrition policy in the Anthropocene: objective government nutrition recommendations, healthy dietary patterns, adequate nutrition security, and effective nutrition education. Application of such criteria shows strong potential to improve our resiliency despite the climate and public health crises.
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spelling pubmed-104690172023-09-01 Nutrition policy critical to optimize response to climate, public health crises Rifkin, Mark E. Front Nutr Nutrition The effects of unanticipated crises on health care and first-responder systems are reflected in climate-fueled environmental emergencies, to which human resilience is diminished by our chronic disease epidemic. For example, people who depend on specialized medications, like refrigerated insulin for diabetes, will likely face additional challenges in receiving treatment and care during extreme heat, floods, disasters, and other adverse events. These circumstances may be compounded by staff and equipment shortages, lack of access to fresh food, and inadequate healthcare infrastructure in the wake of a disaster. Simply put, our health care and first-response systems struggle to meet the demands of chronic disease without such crises and may be fundamentally unable to adequately function with such crises present. However, nutrition’s primacy in preventing and controlling chronic disease directly enhances individual and public resilience in the face of existential threats. Highlighting the shared diet-related etiology clearly demonstrates the need for a national policy response to reduce the disease burden and potentiate mitigation of the sequelae of climate risks and capacity limits in our food and health care systems. Accordingly, this article proposes four criteria for nutrition policy in the Anthropocene: objective government nutrition recommendations, healthy dietary patterns, adequate nutrition security, and effective nutrition education. Application of such criteria shows strong potential to improve our resiliency despite the climate and public health crises. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-08-16 /pmc/articles/PMC10469017/ /pubmed/37662592 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2023.1118753 Text en Copyright © 2023 Rifkin. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Nutrition
Rifkin, Mark E.
Nutrition policy critical to optimize response to climate, public health crises
title Nutrition policy critical to optimize response to climate, public health crises
title_full Nutrition policy critical to optimize response to climate, public health crises
title_fullStr Nutrition policy critical to optimize response to climate, public health crises
title_full_unstemmed Nutrition policy critical to optimize response to climate, public health crises
title_short Nutrition policy critical to optimize response to climate, public health crises
title_sort nutrition policy critical to optimize response to climate, public health crises
topic Nutrition
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10469017/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37662592
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2023.1118753
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