Self-Inflicted Pandemics

As we all face the current pandemic that has affected many aspects of our lives over the last 10 months, I want to remind everyone that this is a scenario based on the infectious nature of our current health challenge, but also bear in mind that we have been facing other pandemics for decades.

What is Pandemic?

An epidemic is a disease that affects a large number of people within a community, population, or region. A pandemic is an epidemic that is spread over multiple countries or continents. These diseases do not need to be infectious in nature and can be the result of poor choices for our health over a long period of time. What I am talking about are chronic diseases, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).

Four non-communicable diseases, namely cardiovascular, cancer, diabetes, and chronic respiratory diseases are the leading cause of mortality in the world, accounting, respectively, for 17, 7.6, 4.2, and 1.3 million deaths based on the latest available global epidemiology data.

NCDs kill 41 million people each year, equivalent to over 7 out of 10 deaths worldwide as reported this year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Once confined to high-income countries, NCDs are now the leading cause of death in developed and developing countries alike.

One in two adults worldwide (50%) have at least one chronic condition, with 33% of adults with two or more. Disease rates from these conditions are accelerating globally and advancing across every region and pervading all socioeconomic classes. It is estimated that the four major non-communicable diseases will be responsible for 75% of worldwide deaths by 2030.

Chronic diseases are interrelated, have common risk factors, and are largely preventable. Both the WHO and the CDC estimate that 80 to 85% of our world’s biggest killers can be prevented.

Chronic diseases have common risk factors. There are non-modifiable factors such as heredity and age and modifiable factors. Chronic diseases are primarily environmental, not genetic in origin. That is the good news as each of us can be stewards of our own health with healthy self-care practices.

Within the context of the Self Care Awakening, we discuss four main inter-related factors that are responsible for many of the health challenges we face from NCDs.

Water Matters

Dehydration has been called “the Mother of all Epidemics and is the first step we need to take in addressing chronic disease”, as stated by Gina Bria, Cultural Anthropologist. Nearly 75% of us are chronically dehydrated each day. This varies a bit by country and regions but in large we do not drink enough water to maintain healthy hydration.

Failure to drink enough water has been linked to may NCDs including chronic fatigue, joint pain, weight gain, type 2 diabetes, headaches, kidney disease, and hypertension.

Sleep Matters

Inadequate or poor-quality sleep has been called a Global Epidemic of Sleeplessness according to the WHO. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls INSUFFICIENT SLEEP a public health epidemic.

Research indicates that inadequate or poor-quality sleep has been associated with many health risks, including heart disease, weight gain, type 2 diabetes, anxiety, stroke, kidney disease, and cancer.

Dr. Matthew Walker, neuroscientist and author of the book Why We Sleep, states, “I used to suggest that sleep is the third pillar of good health, along with diet and exercise, but I don't agree with that anymore. Sleep is the single most effective thing you can do to reset your brain and body for health."

Weight Matters

The obesity epidemic is actually a worldwide pandemic that has global implications for health and disease. In one of the largest studies ever to examine obesity rates across the globe, researchers found that more than 60% of men and 50% of women were either overweight or obese according to the WHO. A 2016 study published in the Lancet, reports that this is the first time in human history that obese people outnumber underweight people. The data, which was pooled from studies, surveys, and reports looked at 19.2 million men and women from 186 countries, and shows stunning changes in less than 40 years, with an increasing average body mass index in multiple countries from 1975 to 2014.

Excess weight and obesity have been called the world’s largest health risk. Weight issues have been implicated in over 100 different chronic diseases, including our largest killers. At least 2.8 million people each year die because of being overweight or obese.

Body Burden Matters

Environmental pollutants adversely affect human health and the environment around the world. These pollutants can be transported by wind and water, while generated in one country they can and do affect people and wildlife far from where they are used and released according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The list of environmental toxins that exist in our environment and bodies is huge. Environmental toxins are all around us. We get them from the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink, in addition to the many products we use in our homes. Toxins have been found in beauty products, household cleaners, carpets, furniture, mattresses, household dust, and even in foods and products from natural sources.

It is estimated that each of us has over 200 environmental toxins in our body and 93% of us have potent endocrine disruptors such as BPA’s in our body.

Environmental toxins have been implicated in many of the chronic diseases that affect millions of people globally.

Chronic disease or NCD’s have been called self-inflicted Pandemics. The answer to this problem is self- care and an active wellness lifestyle. We will be discussing solutions to this pandemic of chronic disease on our next Healthy by Choice masterclass Tuesday, October 13th at 6 PM/PT, 9 PM/ET in the Self Care Awakening Virtual Classroom. You will need to use password Nikken1 to join the class.