The achievement of science, medicine and public health in the 21st century have been enormous. Germs were discovered only around 200 years ago, but the achievements are still very incredible.
It has been a big jump from Louis Pasteur's discovery of the germ theory to the place we are now. His discovery opened the door to antiseptic surgery, improved sanitation, cleaner water, safer food and vaccines. All of these have prevented infectious diseases such as typhoid, cholera, poliomyelitis and small pox. Infectious diseases that were once the cause of death have been upstaged by non-infectious degenerative-type diseases, referred to as western or lifestyle diseases. Western or lifestyle diseases now causes more deaths than infectious diseases.
Today we have improved surgical techniques, better anesthesia and safer blood transfusions, antibiotics have saved millions of lives, although their overuse maybe producing a frightening backlash. Molecular biology and genetics are opening doors to more new worlds, many birth defects can now be detected in advance, and some can be corrected even before birth in the uterus. So is it related to why people live longer today? Actually that believe is largely a myth. For years, people believed that the miracles of modern medicine were responsible for extending the current life span by about 27 years, when compared to those who were born 150 years ago.
The fact is that, around 1900 every sixth baby in America died before reaching the first year of life, mainly because of infectious diseases. This then greatly shortened the average life span in the United States. Then antibiotics came and saved the day.
Then why do we see so much more "degenerative diseases"? Isn't it because most of our ancestors died while they were still too young to experience the diseases of "Old Age"?
The term degenerative disease is really a misnomer, for years people fatalistically accepted the idea that atherosclerosis related diseases (such as, coronary heart diseases and stroke), hypertension, cancer, diabetes, diverticulosis, arthritis, and other ailments were diseases of old age and therefore to be expected. Nothing could be further from the truth, because in western society 150 years ago:
Atherosclerosis related diseases were unknown, the first description of coronary artery disease and heart attacks appeared in the medical literature in 1910. Today these diseases are responsible for almost every third death in the world.
Cancers of the breast, colon, prostrate and lungs were virtually unknown, these cancers however, are now claiming seven million lives each year.
Similarly, very low diabetics were known then. Yet today diabetes rates are increasing with frightening speed and the current number of about 300 million diabetes worldwide and it's expected to double in the next 30 years.
In light of the advances in medical science, shouldn't these diseases be decreasing? It is important to understand that these diseases are actually not "degenerative", they are not necessarily the result of growing older. The fact that more numbers of younger people are suffering from them refutes this.
Modern epidemiology is unraveling the mystery that most of these modern killer diseases are lifestyle related. They are basically diseases of affluence, too much eating and drinking, too much smoking and too little exercise. Medical science is treating the symptoms, but it's time to attack the cause.
Believe it or not, people create their own diseases. The solution to most of our health problems today does not depend on physicians, technological advances, or on quality of our hospitals. Our health today is determined largely by our lifestyle choices, our physiological inheritance and our physical environment.
Good health in today's world mainly depends on what we're willing to do for ourselves, how we choose to live, especially how we eat, drink, exercise, and whether or not we smoke.
"The concept that western diseases are lifestyle related and therefore potentially preventable and reversible is the most important medical discovery of the century" Denis Burkitt, MD, England Discoverer of Burkitt's Lymphoma.
Remember "HEALTH BY CHOICE NOT CHANCE".