Lifestyle diseases (also sometimes called diseases of longevity or diseases of civilization interchangeably) are diseases that appear to increase in frequency as countries become more industrialized and people live longer. They can include Alzheimer's disease, atherosclerosis, asthma,Male Pattern Baldness, cancer, chronic liver disease or cirrhosis, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, Crohn's disease nephritis or chronic renal failure, osteoporosis, stroke, depression and obesity.
Some commenters maintain a distinction between diseases of longevity, and diseases of civilization. Certain diseases, such as diabetes or asthma appear at greater rates in young populations living in the "western" way; their increased incidence is not related to age, so the terms cannot accurately be used interchangeably for all diseases.[1]
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Diet and lifestyle are major factors thought to influence susceptibility to many diseases. Drug abuse, tobacco smoking, and alcohol drinking, as well as a lack of exercise may also increase the risk of developing certain diseases, especially later in life.[2][3][4]
A research paper published in the Lancet in 2002 discussed the effect of diet on the risk of cancer:
"In many Western countries, people's diet changed substantially in the second half of the twentieth century, generally with increases in consumption of meat, dairy products, vegetable oils, fruit juice, and alcoholic beverages, and decreases in consumption of starchy staple foods such as bread, potatoes, rice, and maize flour. Other aspects of lifestyle also changed, notably, large reductions in physical activity and large increases in the prevalence of obesity."
"It was noted in the 1970s that people in many Western countries had diets high in animal products, fat, and sugar, and high rates of cancers of the colorectum, breast, prostate, endometrium, and lung; by contrast, individuals in developing countries usually had diets that were based on one or two starchy staple foods, with low intakes of animal products, fat, and sugar, and low rates of these cancers."
"These observations suggest that the diets [or lifestyle] of different populations might partly determine their rates of cancer, and the basis for this hypothesis was strengthened by results of studies showing that people who migrate from one country to another generally acquire the cancer rates of the new host country, suggesting that environmental rather than genetic factors are the key determinants of the international variation in cancer rates."[5]
In 1900, the top three causes of death in the United States were pneumonia/influenza, tuberculosis, and diarrhea/enteritis. Communicable diseases accounted for about 60 percent of all deaths. In 1900, heart disease and cancer were ranked number four and eight respectively. Since the 1940s, the majority of deaths in the United States have resulted from heart disease, cancer, and other degenerative diseases. And, by the late 1990s, degenerative diseases accounted for more than 60 percent of all deaths.[6]
It should be noted, however, that lifestyle diseases have their onset later in an individual's life and need a longer lifespan in order to become the cause of death.[7] This suggests that the life expectancy at birth of 49.24 years in 1900[8] was too short for degenerative diseases to occur, compared to a life expectancy at birth of 77.8 years in 2004. Also, survivorship to the age of 50 was 58.5% in 1900, and 93.7% in 2007.[9]