![\"David](\"http:\/\/www.bmj.com\/site\/blog\/icons\/davidpayne.jpg\")
Cuba’s population witnessed huge economic change after losing the former Soviet Union as a trading partner in 1989. Food shortages caused by the downturn led to obesity rates falling from 12% to 7% in six years, an average weight loss of between 4-5kg across the whole population.<\/p>\n
The country also introduced new green policies, including the creation of neighbourhood gardens and the arrival of 1.5m imported bikes from China.<\/p>\n
Can developed countries currently affected by the economic downturn learn from Cuba’s experience? Can it be used to prevent cardiovascular disease and diabetes in say, Spain, the UK, and US? How important is a country’s transport policies in helping to reduce obesity and diabetes incidence?<\/p>\n
All of the above information was gleaned not from the full text or abstract of a\u00a0BMJ<\/em> research paper<\/a>, but from the\u00a0video abstract\u00a0\u00a0published to accompany it when it went online last week.<\/p>\n Manual Franco, associate professor in the social and cardiovascular epidemiology research group at Alcal\u00e1 University Medical School, Madrid, was the lead author.\u00a0His paper\u00a0investigates population-wide weight loss and subsequent weight gain in relation to diabetes burden and cardiovascular mortality in Cuba between 1980 and 2010.<\/p>\n