Different from general infectious diseases:
They are caused by long-term and comprehensive effects of multiple factors, rather than simply biological pathogens. These factors include social factors, environmental factors, personal lifestyle and behavioral habits, and biological genetics.
Personal lifestyle and behavior habits
These are closely related to the occurrence and development of chronic diseases, such as unreasonable dietary habits, like eating high-fat, high calorie, low dietary fiber food, resulting in nutritional imbalance, overweight, obesity; Smoking, alcoholism, eating moldy food, drug abuse, salty taste and other bad habits; Sedentary lifestyle and lack of physical exercise; Mental and emotional tension and poor adaptability, withdrawn temperament and poor psychological adaptability, etc.
Unreasonable diet and unbalanced nutrition
High salt, low potassium, low calcium diet are closely related to hypertension. High salt diet is an important risk factor for hypertension, while low potassium and low calcium diet aggravate the adverse effect of sodium on blood pressure. Hypertension is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease.therefore,High salt diet is also an indirect risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Salt is related to the pathogenesis of gastric cancer and may play a role in promoting cancer.
High fat, high cholesterol and low fiber
These diets are risk factors for a variety of chronic diseases. This dietary habit will increase the incidence of gastric cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer, rectal cancer and prostate cancer. High fat and high cholesterol diet caused the increase of serum total cholesterol and low density lipoprotein cholesterol. It is an important risk factor for atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease and ischemic stroke. Dietary cellulose is a polysaccharide in food that cannot be digested and absorbed by the human body. It mainly exists in vegetables, fruits and other foods. The important physiological role of dietary fiber is to promote intestinal peristalsis, prevent constipation, eliminate harmful substances, reduce cholesterol, affect intestinal flora, and prevent intestinal cancer.
deficiency of trace elements
Long term deficiency of trace elements (such as selenium) and vitamin C in these foods is a risk factor for gastric and esophageal cancer. The aflatoxin in moldy food has been proven to be a carcinogen. Pickled and smoked foods contain nitrosamine compounds. It is also a strong carcinogen, which can lead to a variety of malignant tumors such as liver cancer, bladder cancer and esophageal cancer.
Overweight and obesity
Overweight and obesity are generally expressed by body mass index (BMI) = weight (kg) / height (m’) and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR).BMI 24-26 is considered overweight, and greater than 26 is considered obese;A WHR greater than (or equal to) 0.9 in men and greater than (or equal to) 0.85 in women is referred to as abdominal obesity or centripetal obesity.Obesity is a risk factor for the development of hypertension and an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease and coronary heart disease.Obesity increases the risk of hypertension by 2-6 times, while low body weight can reduce this risk.
For every 1kg/rr increase in body mass index, the relative risk of coronary heart disease increases by 12%, and the risk of ischemic stroke increases by 6%.The prevalence of diabetes increased by 23.2% and 18.3% respectively for men and women with BMI greater than 24, but only 4.08% and 3.66% for non hyperrecombination.
Reduced physical activity
Reduced physical activity is a direct cause of overweight and obesity, and therefore also a cause of many chronic diseases.Regular physical exercise has many benefits for health. For example, at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise every day can reduce the risk of heart disease and rectal cancer by 50%, the risk of type 2 diabetes (non insulin dependent diabetes) by 50%, the risk of osteoporosis in women by 50%, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, and the risk of death from malignant tumors.
Smoking and alcohol
Smoking and alcohol abuse are important risk factors for malignant tumors, as well as chronic diseases such as hypertension, coronary heart disease, stroke, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.It is known that smoking can cause or induce lung cancer, bladder cancer cancer, oral cancer, pancreatic cancer, gastric cancer, esophageal cancer and other malignant tumors.The impact of smoking on lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is far greater than other influencing factors, and is significantly correlated with mortality.
The mortality rate of lung cancer in smokers is 7-14 times higher than that in non-smokers.The longer the smoking history, the greater the amount of smoke inhaled, and the deeper the inhalation site, the greater the risk of lung cancer.The risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is 2-8 times higher in smokers than in non-smokers, and can be as high as 30 times or more in heavy smokers.
It has been proven that the main damage caused by tobacco to the human body is nicotine in tobacco and carbon monoxide produced during the combustion of tobacco, which can directly affect the heart, coronary arteries, and blood.Nicotine can increase blood pressure, heart rate, and myocardial oxygen demand;Carbon monoxide can hinder the transportation and utilization of oxygen.The prevalence of coronary heart disease in smokers is twice as high as that in non-smokers, and the risk of ischemic stroke is one time higher. Smoking is also closely related to acute myocardial infarction and sudden death.
Long-term alcohol abuse
Long-term alcohol abuse is associated with malignant tumors such as fatty liver, cirrhosis, liver cancer, oral cancer, throat cancer, and rectal cancer.Alcohol can increase the number of platelets in the blood, poorly regulate cerebral blood flow, cause hypertension, arrhythmia, hyperlipidemia, and increase the risk of hemorrhagic stroke.Men who drink alcohol have a 40% increased risk of developing hypertension compared to those who do not drink alcohol.
Social psychological factors
Social psychological factors, emotions, and life emergencies are also risk factors for chronic diseases.These factors can be direct carcinogenic factors, or indirect inducing or promoting factors.For example, mental stress, interpersonal conflicts, death of relatives, setbacks, etc. lead to negative emotions, which over time can be important psychological factors causing depression, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. Rapid emotional changes can induce acute myocardial infarction and cerebral hemorrhage.
Biological genetic factors
Biological genetic factors have an important internal relationship with the occurrence of chronic diseases, and are important risk factors for many chronic cases, such as malignant tumors, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, diabetes, etc. The probability of a child born to parents with hypertension developing hypertension is 10-20 times higher than that of a child born to healthy parents.The degree of influence of genetic factors on chronic diseases is called heritability (%), the heritability of hypertension is 60%, and the heritability of type 2 diabetes is more than 60%.The heritability of malignant tumors is relatively small.
Ecological environmental factors
Ecological environmental factors, urbanization, and industrialization have caused tremendous changes in people’s lifestyles and living environments. The exposure to various factors that cause chronic diseases has greatly increased. The increase in the social population and the aging of the population have also led to a rapid increase in chronic diseases.In addition, pollution of water, air, and food, as well as the increase in occupational disease risk factors, are important reasons for the continued increase in chronic diseases.
The main risk factors for chronic diseases include unreasonable diet, increased fat intake, decreased intake of fruits and vegetables;long-term smoking, alcohol abuse, sedentary lifestyle, lack of physical exercise, overweight, obesity;family genetic history;long-term mental stress, poor psychological adaptation, environmental pollution and occupational hazards.
