Chronic diseases

Chronic diseases are long duration of condition that has a slow progression of being controlled and cannot be cured. Examples or types of chronic diseases would be asthma, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and obesity, they are the most common chronic diseases that has led to mortality in the world.

Since I have to follow the instructions in the task sheet, I will only focus on diabetes, heart disease and hypertension.

The following are the basic definition of diabetes, heart disease and hypertension:

Diabetes - A disease where a person's body does not produce an adequate of insulin, or either the body does not respond to the insulin properly.
Heart disease - Also known as cardiovascular disease, is a broad term that is used to describe any diseases that affect mainly our heart, the blood vessels, or both.
Hypertension - Also known as high blood pressure, when the heart is required to work harder than normal to circulate blood through the arteries, or scientifically it is when your blood pressure is 140/90 mmHg or above most of the time.

If you're having a feeling or doubt of having these diseases, you could check whether if you meet the symptoms below:

Although there are many types of diabetes, the symptoms are most likely to be similar and familiar.
1. Increased thirst and frequent urinatio
2. Extreme hunger
3. Unusual Weight loss
4. Fatigue or tiredness
5. Tingling or numbness in your hands, legs or feet
6. Nausea, perhaps vomiting

In this following are the not-so-general symptoms but they might be happening too, 

7. Blurred vision (caused by the lens of your eye changing shape)8. Skin infection, itchiness around the vagina or penis, or regular bouts of thrush (a yeast infection)
9. Cramps 
10. Dry mouth
11. Slow-healing sores and cuts

Since heart disease is a really broad term, I will only talk about the general symptoms: 

1. Chest pain (angina) 
2. Persistent shortness of breath
3. Numbness, weakness, coldness or pain in legs or arms, as if the blood vessels in those parts are narrowed

Lastly, it's the symptoms of hypertension. This disease is considered a very dangerous one because there may have no signs or symptoms, it's like a silent killer. That is some people would go to do some health checking every year to ensure there are no diseases happening in their body. According to Mayo Clinic staff, Although a few people with early-stage high blood pressure may have dull headaches, dizzy spells or a few more nosebleeds than normal, these signs and symptoms typically don't occur until high blood pressure has reached a severe — even life-threatening — stage. (Mayo Clinic staff, 2012) 

According to World Health Organization (WHO), there were 60% of all deaths represents the leading cause of mortality in the world. Out of these millions of people who were deceased with the cause of chronic disease in 2005, half of them were surprisingly under 70 and half were women. This is mainly because 80% of the chronic disease mortality happens in low and middle developed countries.

As you can clearly see, chronic diseases are not worth losing our life. Although chronic diseases are very typical and cause many health problems, they are still preventable and can be mostly controlled effectively. Actually the thing is that, we should help the low and middle developed countries' people to have this awareness about chronic diseases in mind, so that they will aware what they should do to prevent these diseases to happen, we should play a role in our community by helping them to have an awareness about the prevention of chronic diseases. This is also why I am here, to share my knowledge about chronic diseases to other people in my community so that they are aware about chronic diseases and we can also be able to live healthily and comfortably all together! C: I will be discussing about the dietary requirements we should be having daily to prevent chronic diseases and see you next time! Bye!

Next post: Dietary Requirements

Source: 

1.      "Chronic Diseases and Health Promotion." WHO. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2013. <http://www.who.int/chp/en/>.cdd

2.      Medical News Today. MediLexicon International, n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2013. <http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/7621.php>.

3.      Medical News Today. MediLexicon International, n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2013. <http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/150109.php>.

4.      Medical News Today. MediLexicon International, n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2013. <http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/info/diabetes/>.

5.      "Obesity." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Nov. 2013. Web. 14 Nov. 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity>.

6.    Staff, Mayo Clinic. "Definition." Mayo Clinic. Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 03 Aug. 2012. Web. 18 Nov. 2013. <http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/high-blood-pressure/DS00100/DSECTION=symptoms>.

7.      "What Is Chronic Disease?" Island Health (Vancouver Island Health Authority). N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2013. <http://www.viha.ca/phc_cdm/cdm/what_is_chronic_disease.htm>.

8.      "What Is Chronic Disease?" The Center for Managing Chronic Disease. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2013. <http://cmcd.sph.umich.edu/what-is-chronic-disease.html>