Chronic Disease: Today's Modern Threats - By: lp5

While smoking has long been considered the greatest modifiable risk factor affecting longevity and quality of life, there are now other factors that may soon pose an even greater threat to the health of Americans. According to an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in March of 2004, “poor diet and physical inactivity may soon overtake tobacco as the leading cause of death.” The article goes on to say that only 1.5% more Americans die each year from tobacco (18.1%) than those that die from poor diet and physical inactivity (16.6%).

In the last 50 years, tremendous advances in industry, agriculture, and technology has transformed this country into the strongest, wealthiest nation on earth and has made the lives of us here in the U.S. easier, more convenient, more entertaining, and more productive. However, these advances have brought about other less positive and even dangerous changes to our diet, our environment, and our lifestyles. These changes occurred over such a long period of time that most of us hardly noticed them. But what we are seeing now is that progress has come with a price and that price is our health with more than half of all Americans now suffering from chronic disease.

THE PRICE OF PROGRESS
Today, modernistic progress and development in America has created sedentary jobs and lifestyles that, along with the convenient availability of today’s fast and processed foods, has caused a dramatic increase in one of the major, modern causes of chronic disease, obesity. Conclusive evidence has linked obesity to a host of chronic diseases including heart disease, cancer, and stroke. Recent figures show that 70% of adult American’s do not get enough exercise and are considered either overweight or obese. The U.S.’s fast food industry is the world’s largest with 134 billion dollars in annual sales.

FOOD TOXINS: THE INVISIBLE THREAT
Poor diet and physical inactivity are only part of the problem when it comes to chronic disease in America today. There is also another, more invisible, threat now facing American’s and is one that has gone almost undetected and at times even concealed and that threat is toxic chemical exposure. While industrialization has filled our air, water, and soil with environmental toxins and other pollutants, one of the most direct sources of chemical exposure we unknowingly encounter comes from the foods we eat. Today’s modern farming methods and the American food industry has since the 1950’s, loaded our processed foods with chemicals such as chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, artificial ripening agents, and preservatives, that over time, our bodies are simply not designed to tolerate.

Here in the U.S., agriculture alone uses over 800 million pounds of pesticides and herbicides on the foods we eat and almost three quarters of all the processed foods we consume each day have been either genetically modified or altered. Making matters even worse, today’s farming methods have significantly depleted the soil of vital nutrients making the fruits and vegetables we buy at the local grocery store less and less nutritious.

Another common farming method used by major food producers today is called factory farming and is defined as the practice of raising farm animals in confinement at a high stocking density. The government calls these facilities Concentrated (or Confined) Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). The purpose of the factory farm operation is to raise and produce as much meat, eggs, and milk as possible, as fast as possible, and at the lowest possible cost. However, factory farming relies heavily on the use of growth hormones and other drugs in order to raise these animals and have them ready for market as quickly as possible. Excessive use of antibiotics is also necessary due to disease being a critical problem because of the unsanitary conditions created when the unnaturally large numbers of animals are confined so close together.

Traces of all the chemicals and drugs used in today’s farming industry remains in the food we eat in the form of residues. Even after cooking, the residues ultimately end up in our bodies. Over the course of several years, these chemicals and drugs, or toxins, build up to a level our bodies are not genetically designed to deal with.

WHAT WE ARE FACING TODAY
The health of America today is facing a combination of risk factors for disease like it has never seen before. Most people know that toxins are dangerous. However most of us here in the U.S. are unaware of the literal thousands of chemical toxins we come into contact with every day. Food toxins combined with air and water contaminates along with sedentary lifestyles and nutrient depleted food sources will eventually lead to a weakened immune system that will gradually result in cell malfunction, thus making you sick. In order to help prevent and reverse disease and give our bodies a chance to detoxify themselves, it is important that we find ways to limit our exposure to these toxins and find nutritious alternative food sources.

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