The conference, organized in collaboration with Mario Negri Institute, is an opportunity to explore the complex relationships between people, territory and food and to deepen the connections between climate change and health. It will be focused on the different scenarios that can prevent and mitigate the effects of global warming and promote agriculture, in order to face demographic and epidemiological challenges. The first one was Hippocrates (400 years BC) who said: “Let food be your medicine”. It is true. But there is a downside. People die more from poor nutrition than from drugs, tobacco, alcohol, and unsafe sexual behaviour all together. And that is not enough: there are 7 billion people in the world, including 3 billion people who do not eat properly (too much, too little or badly). Food production increases the global temperature, compromises biodiversity, pollutes both lands and waters. It is more than what the nature can bear. So let’s start thinking about how we should eat ” from tomorrow onwards” to switch to a sustainable diet which is very important. That is the reason why a great project was born: the Italian Institute for Planetary Health – IIPH, between the Mario Negri IRCCS Pharmacological Research Institute and the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart.
Italy has become an ideal laboratory to develop a project that will have a global impact for many different reasons: it hosted “Expo: Feeding the planet, energy for life” and according to Istat it is the longest-lived country in Europe . This is possible thanks to a National Health Service which is accessible to every Italian, with no discrimination in terms of income, gender or age. Moreover, we cannot forget that our country has a food tradition related to the Mediterranean diet that contributes to a significant reduction of many diseases (cardiovascular ones, for example) and cancer.
IIPH will be an international institute that will promote scientific research. The aim is to identify the nutrients that have the greatest impact on people’s longevity and health.