As politicians travel to the United Nations’ headquarters for the annual General Assembly, they should take time to study New York’s?efforts?to tackle the growing – and increasingly global – burden of lifestyle diseases.

Michael Bloomberg, the city’s free-marketeer and philanthropist mayor, has overseen aggressive and effective measures to help reduce smoking and the consumption of unhealthy food and drink, and to promote physical activity. His local and national counterparts around the world need to do the same – and more.

Four big killers – cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory disease and diabetes – alone account for more than half of the globe’s nearly 60m deaths each year. Dealing with the four big causes – tobacco use, harmful alcohol use, unhealthy diet and lack of physical activity – could substantially cut the human and economic toll they impose.