What’s the Biggest Health Care Issue Today? – It’s Not Health Insurance, It’s Lifestyle Disease
Would you consider AIDs, Avian Flu, Swine Flu and Cancer Boston Medical Center Pediatrics to be the biggest health concerns that exist today?
If so, you would be wrong, because there is another pandemic out there today which includes cardiovascular disease, diabetes (diabetes has increased 70% in 30 year olds in the last 30 years), and hypertension. These are what are now known as diseases of lifestyle, and they are in fact the biggest killers that exist today. In fact if you take into account the origins of most cancers, it too can be related back to lifestyle.
Obesity has also become an epidemic. In the US, 65% of adults and 15 % of kids are clinically obese. In 1985 there were under 10 US states with over 10% obesity (1 in 10 people had a BMI of over 30). In 2007, not one US state had less than 10% obesity. In fact almost every state has at least doubled and some places now have 1 in 3 obesity levels. These figures were taken from the Center for Disease Control website ()
This may be the first generation where parents will Health News New York Times have a longer life span than their children…
The United States has influenced countries in Asia, so much that in just one generation it has gone from having one of the lowest rates of heart disease, diabetes and obesity to one of the highest.
For example, if you walked down any street in the South Korean capital, Seoul, you will find a Baskin Robbins, Dunkin Donuts, Krispy Kremes, TGI Fridays, Outback Steakhouse, KFC, and of course McDonalds and Burger King.
Cardiovascular diseases kill more people than all other diseases combined and that’s the US, and worldwide now.