Dr Maxwell Adeyemi
Lifestyle diseases are ailments whose occurrence is primarily linked with the day-to-day life habits of an individual. If these daily habits of an individual are improper, they might lead one to follow a sedentary lifestyle on a day-to-day basis. Such a lifestyle can further lead to several chronic non-communicable diseases, which can have near life-threatening consequences.
Major lifestyle diseases
1. Heart disease
Heart diseases are an example of lifestyle diseases and refers to conditions involving the heart, its valves, muscles, vessels, or internal electric pathways responsible for muscular contraction. Some of the commonly occurring conditions of heart disease include the following: heart failure, arrhythmias, cardiomyopathy, coronary-artery disease, heart-valve disease.
While the exact cause of heart disease or cardiovascular disease is not clear, there are several risk factors for developing these lifestyle diseases. They are: age of an individual, smoking, poor diet, high blood pressure, diabetes, gender (occurs more in men), high blood cholesterol levels, obesity, poor dental health, physical inactivity and stress.
2. Obesity
Individuals become obese because of unhygienic and unhealthy eating habits, reduced physical activity, stressful lifestyles, and other factors. Obese individuals have a body mass index greater than 25, and they suffer from cardiovascular diseases, breathing problems, blood pressure, and diabetes. This is a primary disorder that can result in several other chronic diseases in an individual.
Besides unhealthy eating and lifestyle habits, there are several risk factors for obesity. These include the following: age, family history and genetics, race and ethnicity, gender, unhealthy environments like getting exposed to chemicals known as obesogens. These can change hormones and increase fatty tissue in an individual’s body.
3. Type 2 diabetes
Type 2 diabetes refers to a condition where cells cannot utilize glucose or blood sugar efficiently for energy. This occurs when the cells become insensitive to insulin, and the blood sugar levels gradually become too high. A combination of several factors like broken beta cells, extra weight, metabolic syndrome, and other factors are responsible for the cause of this lifestyle disease.
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The various risk factors of this lifestyle disease are the following:
Being overweight, drinking soda, excessive consumption of sugar and processed food and foods having simple carbohydrates, following a sedentary lifestyle, consuming artificial sweeteners (sugar-free foods),genetics or having family members with diabetes, lack of exercise and stress.
4. Stroke
A stroke occurs when a portion of the brain loses blood supply and stops working. This results in the part of the body being controlled by the injured brain to stop working. A stroke is also known as a "brain attack", or cerebrovascular accident. A stroke is mai
