Author: BCI

Fluids should be taken even at times when we are not thirsty, so that we can keep our body hydrated, thus subjecting ourselves to less stress. More tips from cardiologist Dr. Ventsislav Grigorov in the interview.

an interview with Dr. Elitsa Becheva-Kraichir

During their studies, future doctors learn some basic rules about cancer, which each of them, regardless of their specialty, will inevitably encounter professionally and, unfortunately, often personally. The first thing medics understand is that this is not a single disease, but is one of the largest groups of diseases in modern man. What these diseases, also called malignant neoplasms or neoplasms, have in common is the abnormal and uncontrolled growth of various cells in the body that have the potential to invade (penetrate and take over) the structures around them and spread to distant parts of the body.

In recent decades we have learned that cancer has a genetic basis – it is linked to various errors in the genetic information of the cell. Doctors know that this usually happens as a person’s body ages, under the influence of harmful external factors, over a long period of time, when our defence mechanisms become “tired”.

Then, spontaneously, a series of somatic DNA mutations occur in a cell and it transforms into a cancer cell. Because of this, the doctor expects to diagnose cancer at an advanced age of the patient – after the sixth or seventh decade. Medical textbooks teach that cancer can be detected in younger people, but very rarely (in up to 5-10% of cases), and then the specialist must suspect an inherited predisposition to cancer due to germline (inherited) mutations. These basic principles of cancer development are the basis of the mass screening and prevention measures offered by health systems around the world, with the commonality of starting at a specific but more advanced age (e.g. after the age of 50 (an exception is made for hereditary forms).

The full article is available here in Bulgarian.

This week marks the 75th anniversary of the introduction of the Beveridge model (named after its author), which established a state monopoly over the UK’s healthcare system and central funding through the public purse. A rare paradox – at the heart of the world’s cradle of modern industrial and finance capitalism, a retrograde system of national centralised and state monopolised healthcare (the NHS) continues to languish. In my view, the NHS is a bigger and worse long-term mistake of generations of British politicians, and even of otherwise intelligent voters, than Brexit voted 7 years ago. The anniversary provides an excellent opportunity to acknowledge the truth about Bulgaria and look forward.

Taking away the right of private hospitals to use the public resource, forcibly collected from the whole population, is the grossest form of violation of the right to choice and basic human rights – the right to life and medical care.

See the full analysis here in Bulgarian.