Annual report 2004 - Compagnia di San Paolo

Alongside these illnesses, other strike dramatically in the developing countries. In the field of
health cooperation the Compagnia intervenes according to two criteria: 1) focusing on projects
within international programmes, endeavouring to fight illnesses such as malaria and tuberculosis
2) bolstering capacity building and supporting targeted equipment in Italy, in particular in Turin. In
this field the grants to Médecins sans Frontières in Rome for the programme on fight against
tuberculosis in Guinea (see the specific box) and in favour of the Milan Foundation Ivo De Carneri,
for a training project for Italian and foreign tropical diseases operators. Other grants were
awarded to the Department of Genetics, Biology and Biochemistry of Turin University for a
research project on malaria, the Department of Social Policies and the Family of the Piedmont
Region and the Alma Terra Turin Association for a tumour screening programme in the Zenica
Canton, Bosnia.
60
Prevention and research on eating disorders
Eating disorders, in particular anorexia nervosa and
bulimia nervosa involve serious somatic damage, with a
risk of mortality twelve times higher than unaffected
subjects of the same sage, hence the social and health
attention they deserve in all developed countries,
including Italy. In Piedmont eating disorders risk subjects
number approximately 700,000. Every year between 180
and 360 new cases of anorexia nervosa are recorded, plus
between 360 and 550 of bulimia. The grant of € 600,000
awarded by the Compagnia in 2004 to the Pilot Centre for
the Treatment, Prevention and Research into Eating
Disorders of the San Giovanni Battista Hospital in Turin is
intended to improve and enhance the clinical assistance
activity already underway (day hospital and day service
assistance, psychomotricity and physiotherapy, dietary
rehabilitation, art therapy workshops).
Thanks to the vicinity of the Department of Clinical
Nutrition, this allocation will lead to the creation of a
unique facility in the Piedmont public health service.
In 2004 a grant of € 490,000 was awarded in favour of the
Department of Neurosciences of Turin University to fund a
research project on the diagnosis, prevention and
treatment of eating disorders, in connection with the future
activities of the abovementioned Pilot Centre.