Ethnomedicine and Non-communicable Chronic Degenerative Diseases: Local Knowledge and Participation for Wellbeing in Northwest Mexico

Dulce Arciniega De Sales, Ximena Padrón, Natalia Martínez Tagüeña, Omar Herrera Casanova, Yadira Ramírez Rodríguez, Luis García Ortega, Ricardo Espinosa Tanguma & Joyce Trujillo

Te invitamos a leer el artículo "Ethnomedicine and Non-communicable Chronic Degenerative Diseases: Local Knowledge and Participation for Wellbeing in Northwest Mexico" en el que colaboró Luis García Ortega de Cinvestav Irapuato.

Autores:

Dulce Arciniega De Sales, Ximena Padrón, Natalia Martínez Tagüeña, Omar Herrera Casanova, Yadira Ramírez Rodríguez, Luis García Ortega, Ricardo Espinosa Tanguma & Joyce Trujillo

Resumen:

Indigenous peoples, throughout the years, have prevented and faced the non-communicable chronic-degenerative diseases (NCDs) using traditional medicine, mainly based on medicinal plants. However, Globalization has impacted their Indigenous traditions, culture, and lifeways, modifying their diet and other practices therefore, their health. NCDs are a group of diseases with long-term effects that are neither communicable nor infectious. Some of these diseases are diabetes mellitus, high blood pressure, obesity, hyperlipidemia, and metabolic syndrome, responsible for 74% of deaths worldwide. In Mexico, changes in eating patterns, sedentary lifestyles, tobacco and alcohol use and consumption of processed foods, among others (as proposed by the Chronicity Theory), have increased the incidence of NCDs. Among the regions with the highest NCDs prevalence is the Northwestern part of the country, in which different Indigenous groups inhabit, such as the O'odham, Pa Ipai, Rarámuris, and Comcaac, among others. In recent years, a significant increase in these diseases has been related to factors such as migration, industrialization, and deficient or lacking medical services in local communities. Therefore, in this chapter we describe the current situation of NCDs in some Indigenous communities of the northwestern Mexico, associated with the existence in the prevalence NCDs and the available efforts for their prevention and treatment. We emphasize the importance of local Indigenous participation in the development of strategies to promote a healthy lifestyle and disease treatment while protecting cultural and biological diversity through the promotion of local and traditional knowledge, as a contribution to the universal health coverage as a target of the Sustainable Development Goal 3 (Good Health and Wellbeing).