Chronic Disease Facts
A Quick Guide to Chronic Disease
If you suffer from a chronic disease, facts can help you make the most of your life, and help you to look at the positives instead of the negatives.
• Approximately sixty percent of all deaths worldwide are the result of chronic diseases. And about eighty percent of all chronic disease deaths take place in middle and low income countries.
• Nearly one-half of deaths from chronic disease affect people under seventy years old, and women and men are affected about equally.
• Cancer is one of the most prevalent of chronic diseases, and the number of new cases is expected to rise from ten million in the year 2000 to a staggering fifteen million by 2020. Tobacco use is the primary cause of cancer, in third-world countries as well as developed countries.
• Another leading type of chronic disease is cardio-vascular disease, which results in almost thirty percent of total deaths globally every year. Many of these deaths would be preventable if people avoided unhealthy diets, smoking and physical inactivity.
• There are many risk factors for chronic disease. Facts point out that high blood pressure, obesity, physical activity and high cholesterol all contribute significantly to chronic diseases. Especially in third world countries, a lack of fruits and vegetables in the diet can also be a factor.
• The most economical ways for world health organizations to deal with chronic disease, facts say, are to reduce salt in food and cut your fat intake, especially saturated fat. Also effective would be a plan to avail more people of fresh fruits and vegetables, to encourage them to be more physically active and to convince people to quit smoking.
• As it stands now, chronic diseases, including cancer, diabetes, heart disease and stroke, are the most common, the costliest, and the most preventable of almost any diseases.
• Risk factors need to be reduced, so that chronic disease does not have such a hold on the world's health. A high Body Mass Index (BMI) can be calculated by self-reported information, but these figures tend to be lower than if the measurements of height and weight are actually taken by a third party. So the problems in our country are even worse than the current statistics show them to be.
• The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is promoting state-wide programs that will encourage people to stay more healthy, or become more healthy, by getting more regular exercise, watching their alcohol and dietary intake, and by eliminating smoking wherever possible.
• If you suffer from a chronic disease, facts that scientists are discovering point to your attitude and willingness to change harmful parts of your lifestyle as factors in whether you will be a victim of death from a chronic disease or not. Doctors have found it surprising that even people with the most to gain do not take a healthy regimen suggestion seriously, and you should avail yourselves of all opportunities to make life with chronic disease more tolerable, and less deadly.