Killer Diseases, Modern-Day Epidemics

Alex Moldanado, Swarna Moldanado

Description

In the past 100 years, the average lifespan in the United States alone has increased by nearly thirty years. However, the years gained are being plagued by non-infectious, killer chronic diseases in epidemic proportions that are increasingly contributing to poor health and premature death in later years. Americans may be squandering the longevity they gained in the twentieth century by succumbing in the twenty-first century to these preventable, killer chronic diseases, largely attributable to dietary and lifestyle choices.

The prevalence of chronic diseases such as heart disease, type-2 diabetes, cancer, and obesity along with the steadily rising human and economic costs surrounding them have spurred research into the causes and risk factors of these diseases for several decades. Researchers have been able to establish evidence-based links between an increased risk for these chronic diseases and exposure to certain environmental, lifestyle, and genetic factors.

In this book, the authors explore the evidence-based connection between lifestyle choices and these killer chronic diseases, providing insight into choices that will hold the disease at bay and effective use of recommended preventative services for early detection and intervention.

Available evidence unequivocally points to the fact that chronic diseases strike people with a particular set of lifestyle choices more often than they affect others who do not make those choices. Adopting healthier choices at any age, and stage of disease progression has proportional benefits. This lifestyle-disease connection makes it possible to not only prevent a chronic disease from setting in but also to stop it in its tracks when detected early and sometimes even reverse it.

Finally, the case examples contributed by the authors bring to life the connection between a person’s lifestyle choices, exposure to modifiable and nonmodifiable risks, and ultimately the development, progression, and outcome of a chronic disease based on lifestyle-related risk exposure.

Sujets

• Santé et bien-être
• Santé du quotidien
• Santé au quotidien
• Santé au quotidien
• Cancer
• Fitness
• Diabetes
• Health
• Diabetes mellitus
• Diseases

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 22 août 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781683367901
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

SWARNA MOLDANADO, PhD, MPH ALEX MOLDANADO, MD
KILLER DISEASES, MODERN-DAY EPIDEMICS

Keys to Stopping Heart Disease, Diabetes, Cancer, and Obesity in Their Tracks
The information contained in this book is based upon the research and personal and professional experiences of the authors. It is not intended as a substitute for consulting with your physician or other healthcare provider. Any attempt to diagnose and treat an illness should be done under the direction of a healthcare professional.
The publisher does not advocate the use of any particular healthcare protocol but believes the information in this book should be available to the public. The publisher and authors are not responsible for any adverse effects or consequences resulting from the use of the suggestions, preparations, or procedures discussed in this book. Should the reader have any questions concerning the appropriateness of any procedures or preparation mentioned, the authors and the publisher strongly suggest consulting a professional healthcare advisor.
Basic Health Publications, Inc.
an imprint of Turner Publishing Company
Nashville, TN
www.turnerpublishing.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available through the Library of Congress.
Copyright 2017 by Swarna Moldanado and Alex Moldanado
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other-wise, without the prior written consent of the copyright owner.
Interior design: Gary A. Rosenberg
Cover design: Maddie Cothren
Cover image: Lightspring/Shutterstock.com
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction
PART 1
Evolution of a Chronic Disease
1. Disease in the Making
2. The Role of Exposure to Risks in Disease Causation
3. Lifestyle Choices and the Connection to Chronic Diseases
PART 2
The Impact of Killer Chronic Diseases on Health
4. Cardiovascular Diseases
5. Metabolic Syndrome, Pre-Diabetes, and Diabetes
6. Cancer
7. Obesity
PART 3
Keeping Chronic Diseases at Bay or Stopping Them in Their Tracks
8. Making and Keeping the Right Lifestyle Choices
9. Regular and Effective Use of Preventive Health Services
10. The Economic and Human Costs of the Major Chronic Diseases
Summary
Endnote References
Credits to Contributing Illustrators
About the Authors
Index
For Our Parents
and
Our Son Arjun
With Gratitude for His Service to Our Country
Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge the superb editing of much of this book by Roberta Waddell, and express our gratitude to her. We would like to give our thanks to the phenomenal jobs done by Maddie Cothren and Gary Rosenberg for the book cover and interior design respectively and Jon O Neal, the managing editor at Turner Publishing, for making certain that the book is the best it can be for the reader. We would also like to express our gratitude to Dr. Lawrence Lenhart, for reviewing the chapter on cardiovascular diseases and offering many thoughtful comments and suggestions that added to the chapter. Dr. Lenhart is an experienced physician, who practiced internal medicine and cardiology in San Mateo, California. We would like to express our thanks to our friend Vijay Narula, an experienced nurse and a certified diabetes educator, for her review of the content on diabetes, and offering helpful suggestions. We would be remiss if we did not acknowledge the support and encouragement we received from many friends and family for the first author s earlier book on legumes that spurred us to write this book.
Swarna Moldanado
Alex Moldanado
Preface
Today, thanks to both an ever-increasing body of knowledge about diseases, and more and better ways of disseminating this information, we know more about the causes, best treatment practices, and management of many of the diseases that beset us than at any other time in history. The information is generated worldwide through research in medicine, and the basic sciences. Much of the research that contributes to this growing body of knowledge is paid for by public monies to facilitate scientific inquiry into the causes and new treatment modalities for diseases that take a toll on public health. Yet the information generated mostly remains enshrined in medical and other professional journals, which are often written in technical language, and are laden with medical and scientific jargon, and complex statistical analyses and terms meant strictly for the consumption of medical, and other highly trained professionals. The public is often left to glean what they can from the print and sound bites of mass media that generally cover only the newsworthy and trendy health topics. People are also increasingly flocking to the Internet for health information that can be conflicting, confusing, and even bewildering to those not in the healthcare field. The resulting ambiguity can have the unintended effect of causing the public to lose faith in the message the information is intended to deliver. People are entitled to credible, usable, health-related information that is conveyed in clear, non-technical language so a layperson can easily grasp and receive the health message. While there are an increasing number of publications on the market, popular magazines among them, that address health topics catering to the lay public, the topic of disease prevention is not a common thread among them. Promoting an understanding of how and why chronic diseases set in and progress, we believe, not only demystifies that process, but is also likely to spur actions that promote health and prevent illness.
As two-health professionals-one with a background in nursing and public health, and the other in medicine, we have long subscribed to the notion that health education is one of the most valuable tools that health professionals have at their disposal to use for the benefit of their patients and the community at large. Yet it seldom is used to its full potential to achieve health promotion and disease prevention at the individual or at the aggregate level. While the Affordable Care Act enacted in the U.S. in recent years is intended to improve access to affordable and accessible quality healthcare, including preventive care, it can only fully succeed in its mission if an informed public avails itself of the preventive healthcare services, and simultaneously adopts health-promoting and disease-preventing health behaviors. A basic requirement of this alternate orientation to health behavior is an unambiguous message that most diseases are preventable at various stages in their progression, including before they ever set in . This book is specifically intended to help the reader understand the concepts related to the development and progression of chronic diseases, and become aware of the opportunities for detecting and ultimately preventing these diseases.
The book contains 10 chapters, plus an introduction and summary. The first three chapters address concepts related to disease development, such as the key players that cause disease, the exposure to risk factors for disease, and preventing or intercepting disease through avoiding and/or minimizing exposure to risk. The incidence, prevalence and causes of the major chronic diseases that account for the most deaths and healthcare costs-cardiovascular diseases, cancers, diabetes, and obesity, are covered in the next four chapters. Each one of these chapters includes one or more case histories, contributed by the physician co-author, Dr. Alex Moldanado, who is a practicing family physician. The cases are all patients from his practice, with the names altered to protect their privacy, and are intended to illustrate the concepts described in the book. Lifestyle choices that have a proven connection with health and disease, and thus warrant making and keeping them for life are detailed in chapter eight. Chapter nine describes the preventive health services, including specific screening tests appropriate for different age, sex, and risk profiles that play a key role in intercepting the chronic diseases through early detection and intervention. The last chapter describes the disease burden of chronic diseases addressed in the book, from an individual, family, and societal perspective. The summary ties the salient points of the content covered, and highlights the message of the book-killer chronic diseases can be prevented before they ever set in, or stopped in their tracks by adopting, and adhering to, the right lifestyle choices.
Swarna Moldanado, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Alex Moldanado, M.D.
Introduction
T he United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world and spends more as a percentage of its gross domestic product (GDP) on healthcare than any other country in the developed world, but it is not the healthiest country in the world. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans experience higher rates of disease and injury and die earlier than people in other developed countries, according to a report released in 2013 by the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine. 1 The report points to an alarming fact that more people in the U.S. die before their fiftieth birthday than in any other developed country, and that the mortality gap between the U.S. and other rich countries is widening. Recent studies suggest that the U.S. health disadvantage persists across the person s lifespan, and across the socio-economic spectrum. Although this health disadvantage has been increasing for decades, the scale of this disparity in the U.S., relative to its peer countries, is becoming more apparent as death and illness rates from chronic diseases like heart disease, cancer, type-2 diabetes, and obesity have reached epidemic p