Major Health and lifestyle Issues Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Major Health and lifestyle Issues - Essay Example The connection is that the kind of lifestyle that a person exhibits predisposes him or her to a health issue. These issues include the cancers, obesity and cardiac conditions. They are closely related to lifestyles and behaviours such as smoking, diet and nutritional changes and overweight, and alcohol and drugs abuse. This paper will deal with some of these health and lifestyle issues in depth. Cancer is a serious and potentially fatal condition that affects the body cells. The disease is as a result of a combination of hereditary and environmental factors that result to gene mutation (Gray 2005). When cell growth regulatory genes are mutated, they fail to regulate cell growth resulting in an aberrant cell behaviour, uncontrolled expansion of cell masses that destroy the cell surrounding by causing excess pressure on organs and tissues. This affects the functions of the organs. In extensive case, the aberrant cells are disseminated in other parts of the body causing the spread of the cancer, a phenomenon called metastasis (UK 2014). When the cancer metastasis to vital organs, it spreads faster, and the prognosis becomes poor. The environmental factors that result to cancer includes exposure to carcinogens, which are present in some foods, water and air. Tobacco and diet have been found to be the causes of up to 30% of new cancer cases in the world. This means that much o f the cancer is preventable. According to WHO, cancer is among the leading causes of mortality in the world. In 2012, the disease caused an approximate of 8.2 million deaths. There are many kinds of cancers, named according to the affected organ (Naidoo &Wills 2010). Lung, liver, gastric, colorectal, and breast cancers are the most common and the main causes of the cancer-related deaths in that order (DeVita, Hellman, & Rosenberg 2005, p.  26). It is estimated that one-thirds of the cancer deaths are related to behavioural and lifestyle changes