Of the 56.4 million deaths worldwide in 2015, 6 of the top 7 causes of death worldwide accounted for 22.9 million of them and were non-communicable diseases: Ischaemic heart disease, Stroke, Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Lung cancer, Diabetes and Dementias. One in three people will get some form of cancer at some time. By the age of 85 there’s a 50% chance you’ll be suffering from dementia.
Obesity and diabetes are pandemic. The number of adults with diabetes has quadrupled in the past 25 years, from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014. This adds up to a global prevalence of 8.5% in 2014 vs. 4.7% in 1980. 90–95% of these individual have type 2 diabetes. This number is expected to increase to 592 million by 2035. [WHO]
Diabetes is no longer a disease of the affluent, with lower socioeconomic groups being disproportionately affected in high-income countries and with 77% of the world’s diabetic population living in low- and middle-income countries. It is also no longer predominantly a disease of older persons, with almost half of the people with diabetes in the 40- to 59-year age range.
Common everyday foods are responsible for contributing to these deaths and the growing number of auto-immune issues.
At the same time, even the good food you eat can be depleted of the essential micro-nutrients you need for optimal health and a strong immune system. Sub optimal micronutrients make the inflammation situation worse.
Our western diet recommended by most health care professionals is based on dodgy research from the 1950s, marketing bullshit from multinational corporations and promotes food stuffs that have only been cultivated for 10,000 years.
But the foundation to good health is a diet that is 2.5 million years old.
For 99.6% of the time humans have been on the planet we ate a diet that enabled us to thrive. In the last 50 years that diet has changed beyond recognition. Altered to the point where commercial farming and manufacturers have convinced us to eat food stuffs our ancestors wouldn’t even recognise as food.
Much more of what ‘we’ eat and drink today is making us ill, if not shortening our life and is definitely going to affect the health of our brain.
The good news is you can change that fate, simply by changing how you eat, exercise and live.