Showing posts with label Obesity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obesity. Show all posts

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Common Diseases and Age



Clinical depression is signaled by persistent change in a person's feelings and behavior that are often misunderstood or ignored. Typical changes include sad or empty feelings, slowed behavior, and changes in eating and sleeping patterns. People with this illness often feel down on themselves and hopeless about future. Many find it difficult to concentrate on work or studies, feel guilty or anxious, cry often or become irritable over little things. Others lose interest in friends, sex and other activities that had given them pleasure in the past. They may complain about physical aches and pains-backaches, headaches, and stomachs problems-for which no medical explanation can be found

Like heart disease and alcoholism, clinical depression often runs in families. More than twice as many women than men suffer from clinical depression and 25% of women and 10% of men will suffer one or more episodes of clinical depression in their lifetimes. Though clinical depression strikes people of all ages, it strikes most often among those aged 24-44.


Obesity and overweight have in the last decade become a global problem - according to the World Health Organization (WHO) back in 2005 approximately 1.6 billion adults over the of age 15+ were overweight, at least 400 million adults were obese and at least 20 million children under the age of 5 years were overweight.
Experts believe if the current trends continue by 2015 approximately 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and more than 700 million will be obese. The scale of the obesity problem has a number of serious consequences for individuals and government health systems.
Overweight and obesity are defined by the WHO as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that presents a risk to an individuals health.  The WHO defines an adult who has a BMI between 25 and 29.9 as overweight - an adult who has a BMI of 30 or higher is considered obese - a BMI below 18.5 is considered underweight, and between 18.5 to 24.9 a healthy weight .

Diabetes Type 1

Diabetes type 1 is much rarer, accounting for only 5 to 10 percent of all diagnosed cases of diabetes. With type 1 diabetes, the body’s immune system destroys special cells in the pancreas that manufacture insulin. These cells, called beta cells, are the only places in the body where insulin is produced. Without them, the body lacks the insulin it needs to move glucose out of circulation and control high blood sugar.

Type 1 diabetes often sets in during childhood, with about half of all cases developing before age 20. Most other cases begin in people up to age 30. It’s very unusual to see a case of type 1 diabetes crop up in anyone over age 40. Because it’s widely seen as a disease of the young (although you continue to have it your entire life), type 1 is sometimes called juvenile-onset diabetes. This term, too, has fallen out of favor, both because adults can get type 1 diabetes and because rates of type 2 diabetes in children are exploding.

Diabetes Type 2


Your risk of developing type 2 diabetes increases as you get older. Diabetes most often affects people over age 40, and people over 65 are at even higher risk. It is recommended that people aged 45 and older be tested for diabetes every three years.



The risk of high blood pressure increases as you age. Through early middle age, high blood pressure is more common in men. Women are more likely to develop high blood pressure after menopause.

Heart Attack

 Heart attack is the death of a segment of heart muscle caused by the loss of blood supply. The blood supply is usually lost because a coronary artery, one that supplies blood to the heart muscle, has a blood clot, a blockage (coronary thrombosis). If some of the heart muscle dies, the patient experiences chest pain and electrical instability of the heart muscle tissue.

The largest risk factor of heart attack is age. When a man is over 45 years, and a woman is over 55 years of age, their risk of having a heart attack starts to rise significantly.

Lung Cancer

Lung cancer is a type of cancer that begins in the lungs. Your lungs are two spongy organs in your chest that take in oxygen when you inhale and release carbon dioxide when you exhale.  Lung cancer claims more lives each year than do colon, prostate, ovarian and breast cancers combined. 

Lung cancer is more common in older people. About 80% of lung cancers (8 in 10) are diagnosed in people over 60. Lung cancer rarely affects people under 40.