essay draft (2)

Two typical non-communicable diseases in developed countries Non-communicable diseases have reached epidemic proportions and

become the biggest cause of deaths worldwide. The UN says that 36

million people are reported to be dying annually from non-communicable

diseases, making 63% of global deaths. There are two typical non-communicable diseasesin developed countries. One is cardiovascular

disease (CVD), the other is cancer. Deaths from CVD, which includes heart

disease, high blood pressure, and strikes, is the most common cause of

death in most Western countries. And it seems that non-communicable

diseases are more likely to appear in developed countries. Therefore, this

essay willfocus on the developed countries. It will firstly make a general

overview of non-communicable diseases. The second and the third part

are the cause and effect of CVD. Subsequently it will turn to the cause and

effect of cancer in developed countries in the next two parts. Finally it will

put forward some recommendati on for non-communicable diseases.

The first typical non communicable disease is the cardiovascular disease

which is the biggest cause of deaths worldwide though over the last two

decades. There are three main causes of it. The first cause is unhealthy

diet which includes three aspects. Firstly, too much intake of saturated

fatty acids can increase the risk of heart disease. In 2003，W orld Health

Organization (WHO) and Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) expert

consultation released a conclusion that the intake of saturated fatty acids

is directly related to cardiovascular risk. Secondly, too much salt intake

can make human’s blood pressure high, which ca uses three times as

much as the original risk of developing heart disease. It had been proved

by an experiment with a colony of 26 chimpanzees. The blood pressure of

the group given a diet of very low Na and high K intake had small or no

rise, conversely the other group had salt added progressively to their diet

rise a lot.(……) The third factor is the lack of fruits and vegetables. Many

nutrients and photochemical in fruits and vegetables, including fiber,

potassium and folate, could be useful to reduce the risk of CVD. (Bazzano,

Serdula and Liu , 2003)

In addition to the unhealthy diet, physical inactivity is also a vital cause of

the CVD. Habitual physical activity including walking, running, swimming,

is completed by using muscle groups, thus it not only increases exercise

capacity, endurance, skeletal muscle strength but alsodeters the

development of coronary artery disease and relieves symptoms in patients

attacked by cardiovascular disease (Paul et al. 2003). The relationship

between physical activity and cardiovascular fitness with cardiovascular

disease risk factors were researched in 88 male adults, 180 female adults,

148 male children, and 142 female children recruited from San Diego,

California. The result is that physical inactivity is significantly in the causal

for factors predisposing to cardiovascular disease, especially ischemic

heart disease (James et al. 1987). There is also an experiment among

women in Japan indicated that physical activity was associated with

reduced risk of CVD. Inactive women are more likely to catch the cardiovascular disease. (Yuko, T omoko, 2004)

Last but not least, the third cause of the CVD is the tobacco use and harmful use of alcohol. Though the popularity of tobacco use is declining during the past few decades, it still is one of the most significant public causes of the cardiovascular disease (Ross et al. 1995). The relation between cigarette smoking and coronary heart disease had been proved by scientists Mayo Clinic in 1940.from then it had been reported that cigarette use increases the risk of cardiovascular disease. 179820 deaths from CVD caused by smoking in US in1900 (Carl et al. 1994). In terms of the use of alcohol, previous studies of Kaiser-Permanente data have indicated that regular use of less alcohol is helpful to reduce the risk of major coronary events and the immoderate use of three or more drinks is associated with an increased prevalence of hypertension. (Klatsky et al. 1981)

The first effect of CVD in developed countries is that it can influence the life expectancy. The statistics of the research done by Senior (2010) indicate that more than 1.4 million people in the UK over the age of 35 have had a heart attack and CVD kill 200,000 people in the UK each year.

A socio-economic assessment of mortality from ischemic heart disease (IHD) in Belgium showed IHD shortens the life expectancy. In urban areas, men’s life is reduced by 2.4 years and women’s life expectancy is decreased by 1.7 years. Also, in rural areas, the life expectancy of men is reduced by 2.5 years and women dropped 1.2 years (Ruige et al., 2010). American Heart Association's (2000) showed that eliminating cardiovascular disease would increase U.S. life expectancy by 7 years. Consequently, CVD can affect the life expectancy in developed countries. In other words, if cardiovascular disease is controlled, the life expectancy would increase.

A second impact is the continuing rise of government’s expenditure on prevention and treatment of CVD. For example, in Australia, where CVD is one of the biggest health burdens, the government’s total expenditure on CVD is estimated to be $162 billion in 2008 and is 71.4% higher compared with the costs in 2005. (National Heart Foundation of Australia, 2010).In Canada, health treatment spending from CVD exceeded $400 billion in 2004 And the main spent of the expenditure are on hospital and medical services (Manuel et al., 2004). It has been reported by New Y ork State Healthy Heart Program (2008) that heart failure-related hospitalizations rose from just over 1 million to approximately 4 million between 1979 and 2004, which made the health care costs increased rapidly in the United States. According to Smaha (2000) the United States would be more than $300 billion richer by controlling CVD.

The other eff ect of CVD is that it can affect one’s normal life by causing disability and lost productivity. A good illustration for this is that New Y ork State Healthy Heart Program Report (2008) states that for every person who dies from a heart attack, 18 people survive. Many of those who

survive from the heart attack are disabled and cannot lead productive lives as they used to. Furthermore, they are at high risk for additional heart disease. Another example for less productivity caused by CVD is that a recent study of self reported work by Price (2004) shows 80 000 workers were affected by CVD during the study year, with each person reporting work related illness taking an average of 23 days off through sickness in the year. This leads to 1.84 million days lost to work related CVD, with associated costs to industry of approximately ￡120 million. In essence, the issue of heart disease and work is a very significant one in terms of individuals affected.

The three main causes of a large amount of cancers in developed nations are smoking-related, dietary and industrial pollution. The first cause is associated with tobacco, which accounts for one fourth of cancer deaths in the world. According to Richard (1982), 30% cancer deaths result from tobacco. Consequently, it is more likely to get cancer if someone smokes heavily every day. For instance, people who smoke 10 to 20 cigarettes per day have a higher risk of getting cancer than that 10 cigarettes per day which is 0.45 to 0.57 compared with 0.21 to 0.39 (Engle, 2006). In addition, Robby (2009) states that since past few decades, the growth of various hazardous disease such as cancer of bladder, lung, esophagus and larynx, has been booted up by smoking, and more than 95% cases of lung cancers were diagnose in smoking individual and tobacco addicted persons, and what is the worse is that around 90% of smokers suffering from lung cancer die during the recent three years. This means that there is still an urgent need to be done to decrease smoking in order to prevent such cancers. (188 words)

The second cause of cancer is considered to be dietary which can also increase the risks of getting cancer, since our diets are made up of hundreds of different types of food, containing thousands of nutrients and chemicals, in addition to the bad things occur when the food prepared. For instance, food that has been intensively heated, smoked, or salted, highly increases cancer risk. By heating whatever food, hundreds of different mutagenic substances originate. The more protein that foo d contains, the more mutagenic originate occurs to cooking. These substances will cause cancer gradually. And what is the worse, obese people may have an increased risk of bowel cancer and pancreatic cancer because they tend to have higher insulin levels due to the unhealthy dietary. As opposed to getting cancer, fruit and vegetables contain a wide variety of nutrients and are high in fiber, and scientists are working on it to find out which nutrients can protect against cancer. These are the factors of getting cancer and also some methods on preventing it.

The third cause of cancer is pollution which has been arisen to be one of the biggest problems all over the world. It contains air pollution, water pollution, and so on. It claimed that one in ten deaths from lung cancer in the UK may be linked to air pollution. For example, Professor Roy Harrison, a member of UK government advisory committees on air pollution, said

US research had provided strong evidence that fine particles contained in emissions from vehicles and industry caused cancer. Also, Professor Harrison said that based on the American study, it was possible that fine particles could cause as many as 3,910 deaths from lung cancer in the UK each year. In addition, Professor Bridge, said in 1957 the Medical Research Council, was planning to issue a statement in which it estimated that air pollution could be responsible for up to 30% of cases of lung cancer, and also stated to have killed 12,000 people totally. These are all the issues that pollution can cause cancer.

At present cancer has become one of the most serious and significant threats to public health. The effects can be divided to two aspects: one is body function; the other is mortality. Cancer is a group of cells which are out of control. More than 100 types of cancers can affect any part of the body. Because of their uncontrollability, they will get bigger and more harmful than normal cells. It is safe if the cancer cells stay at the same place .However once they transfer, they will cause terrible problems (Trafton, 2010). For example when they transfer to your brain, pressure is made. It will influence the specific function which is under the control of that part of the brain (American Cancer Society, 2011). Cancer is also one of the major causes of death. In most developed countries, cancer is the second largest cause of death after cardiovascular disease (W orld Health Organization, 2008). In America, 1 in 4 deaths is due to cancer. Though the mortality growth is slowed because of the development of medical technology, it still is a problem that the death-rate remains high. In a conclusion, the existence of cancer has a serious threat to human’s health.

In the meantime, cancer also was a factor holding back economic development. In a study, some experts analyzed and disposed the data from previ ous survey about Australian economic health. They found that the probability of breast cancer survivors working is 10 percentage points less than that for women without breast cancer. It means that breast cancer has a negative effect on reducing labor force (Bradley, Neumark, Bednarek and Schenk, 2005). On the one hand, it decreases the output. On the other hand, it increases the social and family input. Cancer patients need more than normal people, including disease and treatment monitoring, symptom management, medication administration, emotional support. It is a huge cost. For example, the medical costs of cancer have reached 127.54 dollars in 2010(National Cancer Institute, 2011). In order to help them, the governments have to develop health care system, devote a large amount of manpower and materials to create new drugs; the families have to take more attention on them, sometimes even give up jobs to take care of them (Barbara, Charles and Kozachik, 2001).Therefore cancer has been a great burden of economic development.

Finally, cancer’s impact on society cannot be avoided. As it is related to numerous aspects and some such as family are talked before, we solely pay attention to public social psychology. For those who do not have

cancer, they are afraid of it and turn pale at the very mention of it. Because though a part of patients with cancer can be cured in developed countries, the time is limited. Only a cancer patient can be cured of the earlier. Worse still, the treatment process is painful because it kills normal cells inescapably (World Health Organization, 1996). For those who are cancer patients, there are also psychological difficulties caused by cancer. For instance, skill cancer patients have to do things that are not normal to other people. They have to keep themselves out of the sun most of the time (Macready, 2011). It is a terrible problem when they think they are abnormal. They will be withdrawn and refuse to contact society. Cancer influences the psychology of both the two types of people. In other words, it causes social fear and upset, also affect social stability indirectly.

To conclusion, this essay has explained the causes and effects of two typical non-communicable diseases appearing in developed countries.

Those who have unhealthy diet, physical inactivity as well as tobacco use and harmful use of alcohol are likely to catch CVD, which can influence the life expectancy, increase the government s’expenditure and affect individual’s normal work. As for cancer, the improper life-style and environment factors can be the cause, which lead

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