Health promotion or pharmacological treatment for chronic diseases?

Over the last years medicine has progressed very rapidly. Com- municable diseases, which were the leading causes of mortali- ties, are not anymore, especially in developed countries. Cur- rently, non-communicable diseases are more prevalent, and most of them are related to changes in our daily habits and degenerative processes. Most of these diseases are chronic, need continuous care and treatment with limited improvement and high costs. The General Assembly of the United Nations in its resolution 65/238 recognized the primary role and responsibility of Governments in responding to the challenge of non- communicable diseases and the essential need for the efforts and engagement of all sectors of society to generate an effec- tive response. Special emphasis has been concentrated on phar- macological treatments for most of chronic non-communicable diseases with the challenge to discover new drugs for treating, in most cases, chronic irreversible degenerative diseases asso- ciated with aging. Little care was given to non-pharmacological lines of treatment