What diseases are caused by food and healthcare?
Top Human Dis-eases
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the top 2 causes of death globally have been heart disease and stroke for the past decades. Interestingly about 50-60 million people on average die each year, with the top 10 causes of death accounting for over half of those deaths. Also interestingly noted are the disparities (graph below) among causes of death between the low-middle-high income areas. The top 10 causes of death are (Click here for table that includes risks and prevention factors for each):
1. Ischemic heart disease, or coronary artery disease - One person dies every 37 seconds
2. Stroke- Every 40 seconds someone has a stroke. Every 4 minutes someone dies from a stroke.
3. Lower respiratory infections - For US adults, pneumonia is the most common cause of hospital admissions other than women giving birth. Every 39 seconds a child dies from pneumonia.
4. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease – kills on average one person every 10 seconds
5. Trachea, bronchus, and lung cancers - Lung cancer is by far the leading cause of cancer death among both men and women. Each year, more people die of lung cancer than of colon, breast, and prostate cancers combined.
6. Diabetes mellitus – Every 5 seconds someone develops diabetes. Every 8 seconds someone dies from diabetes.
7. Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias - Every 65 seconds, someone in America develops Alzheimer's. Every 3 seconds, someone in the world develops dementia. Said to be only disease in the 10 leading causes of deaths in the United States that cannot be cured, prevented or slowed.
8. Dehydration due to diarrheal diseases - 1.8 million people die every year from diarrheal diseases (including cholera); 90% are children under 5, mostly in developing countries. Diarrhea kills 2,195 children every day—more than AIDS, malaria, and measles combined, making it the second leading cause of death among children under 5.
9. Tuberculosis- Tuberculosis is a global pandemic, killing someone approximately every 21 seconds — about 1.5 million in 2018 alone. Tuberculosis (TB) is a global disease, found in every country in the world. It is the leading infectious cause of death worldwide. The World Health Organization estimates that 1.8 billion people—close to one quarter of the world's population—are infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb), the bacteria that causes TB.
10. Cirrhosis- Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis result in about 35,000 deaths each year in the United States. While young people are dying from alcohol-related cirrhosis, older people are dying from liver cancer and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
According to the data worldlifeexpectancy.com and causesofdeathin.com, the country with the highest coronary heart disease death rate was Turkmenistan. According to politicalholidays.com, in Turkmenistan, “the typical diet comprises of lots of meat, bread, dumplings and dairy and small amounts of vegetables. Soups and stews (shorpa) are very common (ibid).” Initially, I was thinking maybe they consumed a lot of salt/sodium in seasonings for their soups, stews, meats, etc. But according to politicalholidays.com, in general, Turkmen cuisine does not use spices or seasoning, however it is cooked with large amounts of cottonseed oil (oil extracted from the seeds of cotton plant) for flavor. Interestingly, Cottonseed oil is one of the worst oils if you compare saturated fat vs. monounsaturated fat. When you compare the top 3 countries listed on worldlifeexpectancy.com, their diets have a common theme: high protein meat-based diets, with rice and dairy, along with low consumption of vegetables. The countries at the bottom of the list for coronary heart disease death rate were: South Korea, France and Japan. These countries share a common theme of higher consumption of vegetables with fish rather than meat, as well as very little red meat, processed foods or sugar.