ROMA (ITALPRESS) – The fifth edition of the National Convention promoted by the Italian Association against Leucemie, lymphoma and myeloma was held in Rome, at the Congress Centre Roma Eventi – Fontana di Trevi (Piazza della Pilotta, 4). “Current is taking care. Food, Wellness and Lifestyles: AIL’s commitment”. The meeting was an important invitation to collective reflection, shared responsibility and concrete action. The AlL National Convention is organized with the Patronage of: Ministry of Environment and Energy Security, Higher Institute of Health, Sport and Health, CONI Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano, ISPRA Istituto Superiore per la Protection e la Ricerca Ambientale, Sistema Nazionale per la Protection dell’Ambiente, Regione Lazio e Comune di Roma. It also took advantage of the patronage of: SIE Società Italiana di Ematologia, SIES Società Italiana di Ematologia Sperimentale, AEOP Associazione Italiana di Ematologia e Oncologia Pediatrica, FIL Fondazione Italiana Linfomi, Fondazione GIMEMA Gruppo Italiano Malattie EMatologico dell’Adulto Franco Mandelli, and GITMO Gruppo Italiano per il Trapianto di Midollo Osseo. The meeting opened with the institutional greetings of the Minister of the Environment and Energy Security Gilberto Pichetto Fratin and the Minister of Health Orazio Schillaci and was a privileged area of multidisciplinary confrontation between national and international researchers engaged on health, well-being and care. AlL met in Rome, also on this occasion, scholars, doctors, nutritionists, psychologists, sociologists of the environment and volunteers from all over Italy and abroad, to focus the debate on an essential theme: how lifestyles, and in particular nutrition and appropriate nutritional paths, can influence the path of onco-ematological pathologies. The conference was born of a simple but powerful idea: health cannot be reduced exclusively to a clinical dimension. Care means taking care of people as a whole looking at the quality of the environment they live in, the food they eat, the inequalities they face. In the course of the conference the possible relationships between environmental exposure, urban environment and oncological risk were also analysed, with particular attention to environmental pollution. “Curare means, first of all, taking care of people in their entirety – says Giuseppe Toro, National President AIL – Health cannot be reduced exclusively to a clinical fact, but is the result of a balance between body, mind and environment. With this conference AlL wants to reaffirm the importance of nutrition, well-being and lifestyles as the fundamental pillars of the quality of life of cancer patients. It is essential to promote a health culture that combines scientific research, sustainability and social responsibility. Only through the collaboration between doctors, institutions and citizens can we build a model of care that really puts the person and his living environment at the centre.”The numbers speak clear. According to GLOBOCAN 2022, leukemia is among the ten most diagnosed tumors in the world, and is one of the main causes of death for cancer. In Italy, only in 2022, there were over 10,000 new cases of leukemia and more than 7,000 deaths. To these are added almost 6,300 new cases of multiple myeloma. However, there is a fact that turns on a hope: about 40% of cancers are potentially preventable, acting on changing risk factors such as nutrition, smoking, alcohol, and sedentaryness: these are the levers on which we can intervene to reduce the incidence of many diseases. In this context, nutrition emerges as a crucial snout. Not only nutrition, but a key element of prevention. Despite this, in Italy more than six million people live in food poverty and cannot afford a protein meal every two days. A condition that dramatically affects health, especially among the most fragile bands of the population. The quality of food not only depends on what we eat, but also on how that food is produced, packaged, distributed. The themes discussed during the conference touched on urgent issues such as the excessive use of pesticides in agriculture, the presence of toxic substances in plastic packaging materials and the slowness with which the European Union moves towards concrete objectives, such as the reduction of 50% of pesticide use by 2030. You cannot talk about prevention without addressing the environmental issue. Chronic exposure to fine dust, urban pollution, air and water quality: all these factors can directly affect our health. On the occasion of the National Conference AIL, the “Manifesto for the protection of universal right to health and for the construction of a fair, efficient and person-centered health system”, a document aimed at identifying the fundamental principles to ensure the effective exercise of the right to health. The protection of health and well-being requires a common commitment, continuous and based on solid scientific evidence, through coordinated and shared action. With the Convention 2025 AIL renews its commitment to promote awareness, build knowledge and foster responsible choices, both individually and collectively. The challenge is clear: reduce the risk of onco-ematological disease onset, improve the quality of patient life and support the health system, today more than ever under pressure. Finally, AlL intends to establish a fundamental principle: health is a human right, and must be guaranteed to all and all, through effective public policies, education, access to appropriate nutrition, environmental justice and social cohesion. “Curating is taking care of” is not only a title. And a vision. It is AlL’s concrete and renewed commitment to build a future in which health is not a privilege, but a real possibility for all. -photo mec/Italpress – (ITALPRESS).
