Top Three Preventable Health Hazards
September 14th, 2009
High blood pressure, smoking and being overweight are the leading preventable health risk factors in the United States, according to a recent study from the University of Toronto and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.
The researchers found that high blood pressure is responsible for 395,000 premature deaths each year, smoking for 467,000 and being overweight for 216,000. High blood pressure is responsible for one in six deaths while smoking accounts for one in five deaths in American adults.
The researchers also found significant adverse effects from a series of other preventable dietary and lifestyle risk factors, including: Inadequate physical activity, high blood sugar, high LDL cholesterol, high dietary salt, low dietary omega-3 fatty acids, high dietary trans fatty acids, and low intake of fruits and vegetables.
All of these risk factors are modifiable through a range of public health and health system interventions.
This is the first study to look at a wide range of risk factors, including those associated with diet, lifestyle and metabolic factors, and the first to do so for the whole U.S. population. The researchers analyzed data from a number of public sources, including from the National Center for Health Statistics and numerous published epidemiological studies and clinical trials.
The researchers also found differences between the preventable causes of death among men and women. Smoking was the leading cause of death in men, responsible for an estimated 21 percent of all adult male deaths. High blood pressure was the leading cause of death in adult women, accounting for 19 percent of all female deaths. The mortality effects of many other risk factors were about equal in men and women.
Study findings indicate that the government should use regulatory, pricing and health information mechanisms to reduce salt and trans fat in prepared and packaged foods and to support research that can find effective strategies for modifying the other dietary, lifestyle, and metabolic risk factors.
For individuals with hypertension, acupuncture can aid in lowering elevated blood pressure. Acupuncture is an optimal complementary therapy to conventional medical treatments.
By stimulating brain cells to release neurotransmitters, acupuncture can inhibit cardiovascular activity. This decreases the heart’s activity and need for oxygen, which as a result can lower blood pressure and promote healing for a number of cardiac conditions such as hypertension.
High blood pressure is often treated with lifestyle recommendations associated with diet, exercise and weight loss in combination with drug therapy. However, some individuals seek out alternative therapies such as acupuncture due to an inability to enact healthful lifestyle changes or who continue to experience high blood pressure although they lead a healthy lifestyle.
For more information about acupuncture for the treatment of high blood pressure call Dr. Richard Browne, Acupuncture Physician, at (305) 595-9500.
One Response to “Top Three Preventable Health Hazards”
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December 21st, 2010 @ 9:59 am
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