Lifestyle Diseases. What are they and which are the most common, including cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, neurological disorders and respiratory diseases.
What is a lifestyle disease?
Lifestyle diseases characterise those diseases whose occurrence is primarily based on the daily habits of people (aka their lifestyle) and are a result of an imbalanced relationship of people with their environment.
The onset of these lifestyle diseases is insidious, they take years to develop, and once encountered do not lend themselves easily to cure.
These illnesses used to be considered the diseases of industrialised countries, so-called "Western diseases" or "diseases of affluence"; however, internationally they are known as non-communicable 1 and chronic diseases 2 , part of the degenerative3 diseases group.
These diseases can result in long-term health consequences and often create a need for long-term treatment and care, loss of independence, years of disability, or death, and impose a considerable economic burden on health services.
Which are the most common Lifestyle Diseases?
The 5 big categories of the most common lifestyle diseases are:
Cardiovascular Diseases Most types of Cancer (around 90%) Gastrointestinal Conditions Neurological Disorders Chronic Respiratory Diseases
Let's take a brief closer look on these categories.
Cardiovascular diseasesdiseases of the heart and circulatory system, blood vessels (veins and arteries)
The world’s leading cause of death and disability.
Most Common:
Ischemic Heart Diseases (e.g. heart attacks) Cerebrovascular Diseases (e.g. strokes) Arteriosclerosis Hypertension
Cancer the uncontrolled growth of cells, which can invade and spread to distant sites of the body and can affect all systems and organs.
A leading cause of death in the world. Around 10 million people die from cancer in a year.
Most Common:
Breast cancer Lung cancer Colorectal cancers Prostate cancer Stomach cancer skin cancers
Diabetes a chronic disease of the pancreas
Diabetes is now among the top 10 causes of death worldwide.
Other common lifestyle diseases of the Gastrointestinal Tract and Metabolic Function are:
Chronic Liver Disease/Cirrhosis Colitis Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) Metabolic Syndrome
Neurological disorders that affect brain function and mental health
Worldwide 10-20% of children and adolescents experience mental disorders. Half of all mental illnesses begin by the age of 14 and three-quarters by mid-20s.
Most Common:
Alzheimer's disease Vascular dementia Depression
Chronic Respiratory Diseases diseases of the airways and other structures of the lung
Chronic respiratory diseases affect at least 550 million adults globally, and are a leading cause of death and disability worldwide.
Most Common:
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Asthma Lung cancer (is also added in this group) Pulmonary Hypertension
Other common diseases that are categorised as Lifestyle Diseases are:
Arthritis Osteoporosis Polycystic Ovarian Disease (PCOD) Nephritis/ Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD)
All these diseases and disorders are affected by the lifestyle of the individual, which means that there is something we can actually do about them.
On my next articles about Lifestyle Diseases, I am going to share with you the leading lifestyle and environmental factors that contribute to the development of such diseases and the general preventative plan that an individual can follow in order to manage and prevent the appearance of Lifestyle Diseases and promote health and longevity!
1 Non-communicable diseases: diseases that are not passed from person to person
2 chronic diseases: conditions that last 1 year or more and require ongoing medical attention or limit activities of daily living or both
3 degenerative diseases: the result of a continuous process based on degenerative cell changes, affecting tissues or organs, which will increasingly deteriorate over time
Resources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2862441/
https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/lifestyle-diseases-economic-burden-health-services
https://ncdalliance.org/why-ncds/ncds/cardiovascular-diseases
https://ncdalliance.org/why-ncds/ncds/cancer
https://ncdalliance.org/why-ncds/ncds/diabetes
https://ncdalliance.org/why-ncds/ncds/mental-health-and-neurological-disorders
https://ncdalliance.org/why-ncds/ncds/chronic-respiratory-diseases-0
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