Dr. Sheel J. Saxena | Global Foundation for Community Health

In 2008, when hope erupted in the United States on Mr. Obama being elected President, I was in a dark place mentally with unfathomable despair. My mother, a 61 year-old diabetic, suddenly died of a heart attack. Soon after, my father became walking dead from a brain hemorrhage. He died in 2015, a shell of a man. As a physician, I should have paid more attention to their health. It is a sadness and personal failure I have to live with.

My parents fell to chronic non-communicable diseases (CNCD; related lifestyle conditions of type II diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and stroke), and they were not alone in being afflicted by this worldwide pandemic. In Mauritius where they lived and died prematurely, a staggering 40% of the population is either diabetic or pre-diabetic, and yet 80% of CNCD are preventable. This health situation represents a threat to national security for Mauritius. Many nations around the globe are in a similar bind.

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