This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on Diseases of affluence is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:
Related Sponsors
Diseases of affluence are those diseases which are thought to be a result of increasing wealth in a society, in contrast to diseases of poverty which result from impoverishment.
Contents |
Examples
Examples of diseases of affluence include: type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, peripheral vascular disease, obesity, certain forms of cancer, asthma, alcoholism, depression[1], as well as a major range of other psychiatric illnesses.
These diseases are categorized as non-communicable diseases, whereas the diseases of poverty tend to be largely communicable either through infection, inadequate safety or environmental health regulations, or poor hygiene.
Diseases of affluence are predicted to become more prevalent as starvation and diseases of poverty decline, and as longevity increases. From a sociological perspective, there is a failure among policy makers to recognize that development could be experienced as self-defeating if it means exchanging one set of diseases for another.
Possible causes of the diseases of affluence
Factors associated with the increase of these illnesses appear to be, paradoxically, things which many people would regard as improvements in their lives. They include:
- Increased use of the car
- Less strenuous physical exercise
- Easy accessibility in society to large amounts of low-cost food (relative to the much-lower caloric food availability in a subsistence economy)
- More food generally, with much less physical exertion expended to obtain a moderate amount of food
- More high fat and high sugar foods in the diet are common in the affluent developed economies of the late-twentieth century
- More foods which are processed, cooked, and commercially provided (rather than seasonal, fresh foods prepared locally at time of eating)[2]
- Increased leisure time
- Prolonged periods of inactivity
- Greater use of alcohol and tobacco
- Longer life-spans
- Reduced exposure to infectious agents throughout life
See also
References
 |
The references used in this article may be clearer with a different or consistent style of citation, footnoting, or external linking. |
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2006) |
External links
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 29 May 2008, at 12:21.
Wikipedia Authorship and Review
Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.
Wikipedia Usage Guidelines
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Diseases of affluence".
The URL for this specific entry is:
All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.