Lifestyle Diseases

Life style disease and how it occurs

Lifestyle diseases are also called disease or longevity or disease of civilization . They tend to appear and increase in their frequency with the increasing pattern of industrialization in countries . Therefore lifestyle disease correlated with the change in patterns of lifestyle in the population . They are diseases that are tied to the lifestyle of the people (Key , 2003

How they differ from other diseases

Lifestyle diseases are very different from other diseases in the sense they are potentially preventable . This means that unlike other disease

br the occurrence of lifestyle disease can be prevented by changing some factors in the living environment like changes in the diet , change in lifestyle and change in the environment . For the other disease , death is caused by a sudden onset of conditions but in lifestyle disease there is slow development of condition over the years as people age Therefore they are insidious diseases which are not easily identified to be fixed by allopathic medicines

Three major factor contributing to lifestyle diseases

There are three major factors that contribute to the lifestyle diseases All these factors are in our living environment and therefore they can be easily fixed . They include the following

One of the leading factors of lifestyle diseases is our diet . As nations become industrialized , the population is concentrated in towns and therefore time taken for agriculture produce from the farm to reach them is increased . As a result there is increased processing of foods in to preserve them . This means that people will be consuming refined foods which have a high glycemic index and taxes the body system . As people move to towns their diet is changed and there is increased consumption of meat , dairies , processed fruit juice alcoholic beverages , and starchy foods . These increase the prevalence of overweight and obesity (Roth , 003

With improved technology , people have reduced the amount of energy expended in doing activities . Therefore most people do not engage in energy demand tasks . With the increased consumption of high calorie refined foods , they have more energy left in their body system which is converted to fat leading to increase weight and obesity . This is a precursor for lifestyle diseases

There is also genetic factor that causes lifestyle disease . There are families which have history of overweight and obesity which causes lifestyle diseases . However the expression of thee genetic factor largely depend on the environmental factors life diet and the kind of lifestyle (Hu , 2003

Three lifestyle diseases and how to prevent them

Arteriosclerosis

This is a generic term which is used for a number of diseases in which the arteries become thickened , hardens and loses elasticity . It is the leading vascular disease which has recorded more deaths . Plaques or atheromas are usually deposited in the arterial walls are the leading cause of heart disease , chest pains , heart attacks and other diss that occur in the circulation . Yellowish plaques which are deposits of fats , cholesterol and others occur inside the war reducing the...