Valentín Fuster. PHOTO: Manuel Castells

The cardiologist Valentín Fuster (Barcelona 1943), director of the Cardiology Unit at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York and president of the National Center for Cardiovascular Research, appealed to changes in behavior and healthy habits as the main strategy to attack what he called an "epidemic" and which is currently the leading cause of death in developed countries: cardiovascular disease. Fuster inaugurated the symposium"Looking towards the future", with which the Clínica Universidad de Navarra celebrates its 50 years of existence, before an audience of more than 300 physicians and nearly 400 nurses, with a lecture entitled "Transition from cardiovascular disease to health (2012-2020). The challenge of identifying subclinical disease."

The Barcelona-born researcher , considered to be the leading exponent in his field, blurred a bleak future with a triple prescription: "Education,awareness and responsibility." "In reality, the problem lies in the fact that we live in a consumer society in which it is very difficult to maintain a behavior that controls everything that gives rise to heart disease, the seven risk factors, of which only age is uncontrollable: blood pressure, cholesterol, obesity, sedentary lifestyle, smoking and diabetes. There are many of these factors that society does not promote control. And this is a very important aspect," he said. This status is summarized in an idea that Fuster repeated several times during his speech:"We are in a society that does not admit that it is vulnerable".

An unsustainable future

Fuster, who was Full Professor at Harvard and has received numerous awards for his research -among others, the Prince of Asturias of the research in 1996 or the Grand Scientific award (2011) awarded by the French Lefoulon-Delalande Foundation- considers that without educational work, we are facing a future in which it will not be possible to sustain the high economic costs of treatments for cardiovascular diseases.

For this reason, he pointed out some of the challenges facing professionals in the coming years. Among others, "moving from disease to health" by raising awareness, insisting on the close relationship between heart and brain, effectively applying research, or "the social responsibility of communication". The average time a physician spends informing a patient about a drug is 49 seconds. "The patient is not being treated adequately," he said. He also called for a horizontal model in which all the professionals in the healthcare chain fulfill their duties, "from the telephone operator to the ambulance driver".

Likewise, he broke down some of the research he is conducting, which in some cases aims to identify the disease in a subclinical state (through the analysis of the thickness of the carotid arteries, for example). "But the big challenge -he insists- is to know if we are going to be able to change our lifestyle habits". To correct this status, Fuster carries out intense work at Education and knowledge dissemination, especially among children. "A good part of our behavior as adults is determined by the period between 3 and 6 years of age," he said.

Childhood obesity

Very concerned about childhood obesity - in Spain it is 20% among children under 15 years of age - he has launched several actions to correct this problem, one of them through the SHE Foundation (Science, Health & Education). In Bogota, he is working with 25,000 children through a program, which is also being implemented in Spain, involving Sesame Street characters. According to the Catalan doctor, caring for a heart should begin before birth. "From the time the woman is pregnant," he maintained.

With a clear humanist vocation - he confessed to being an admirer of Tagore and Ghandi - Fuster launched the guidelines to achieve mental health and happiness. The first can be summed up in four "T's": time to reflect, talent to discover, transmit positivity and tutoring. Happiness, through four A's: attitude, acceptance, according (in English, to be consistent with oneself) and altruism.