5 HEALTH ISSUES WE MUST KNOW

                                               [1] CHAGAS’ DISEASE SPREADING

             CHAGAS’ disease comes from a parasitic transmitted through the feces of a blood sucking insect commonly called the kissing bug. The disease is endemic in rural areas from Mexico to Argentina. An estimated one and a half two million Mexicans are affected with parasite. However, Chagas’ disease is spreading to other part of the world. One way is through blood transfusions. Mexicans biologist Bert Kohlmann explains: we have already got reports from Australia, Europe, the United States of America and Canada of infections through blood transfusions. Migrants from the Americas who are usually healthy give blood and nobody in those other places even thinks about screening for chagas. The world health organization estimates that in the western hemisphere, 16 to 18 million people are infected with the disease and 100 million more are at risk. At present, there is no cure for the disease [chagas], which is often fatal.

                                                     [2]    LIFE-STYLE AND CANCER

          Cancer is overwhelmingly caused by where you are, what you do, and what happens to you in life, rather than by what you are, a study of almost 90,000 twins has shown,” reports London’s newspaper The Guardian. Dr. Paul Lichtenstein of Sweden’s Karolinska Institute led the research team for his study. He says: “Environmental factors are more important than gene factors.” Scientists believe that smoking causes about 35 percent of cancers, while another 30 percent appears to be related to diet. Genetic factors play a part in prostate, colorectal, and breast cancer, but Dr. Tim Key of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in Oxford, England, advises: “Even if you have….. a family history [of cancer] what you do with your life is much more important. You should not smoke, you should care of your diet. Those things do make a difference.

                                        [3]        PROBLEMS CONNECTED WITH OBESITY

           Obesity is increasing in America. According to estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of obese American adults has increased from 12.5 percent of the population in 1991 to 20 percent in 2016. This increase has affected a number of businesses. Like the airline industry, which was warned in May 2013 that passengers were heavier than they used to be, and was asked to adjust weight estimates accordingly, the funeral industry is retooling to make room for ever-larger Americans. While the standard coffin is 61 centimeters wide, coffins are now available up to 124 centimeters in width and suitably reinforced. Vaults, graves, hearses and even the standardized scoop on the front-end loaders that cemeteries use for grave-digging have also had to be increased in size. People are living larger and dying larger, and industries have to adapt to that situation.

                                             [4]        MALE DEPRESSION

         One of the oldest things about depression is the lingering myth that it is mostly a female disorder from which real men are genetically protected. Specialists say depression remains hidden in men because men visit health professionals less often than women, with less opportunity to talk about their problems and they are less able to articulate emotional distress. So doctors are more familiar with symptoms that are common in female victims of depression. In women depression has a notably different constellation of symptoms than in men. What are some of the symptoms common in male depression? Anger, fatigue, irritability, aggression, a drop in work performance, and a tendency for the sufferer to isolate himself from loved ones and friends. Sadness does always accompany depression –especially for men.

                                                            [5] NON-SMOKERS DEATH

                                   One in every 8 lung cancer deaths among nonsmokers. Scientists based their finding on a study of 52,000 people who died from lung cancer. Additionally, long-standing research shows that toxic carbon monoxide and carcinogens are more prevalent in secondary smoke than smoke directly inhaled by smokers. In 1999 a government study in Japan involving 14,000 people found that 35 percent of those at work or at school was exposed to secondary smoke. Smoking should be aware they are harming non-smokers to such an extent a conscious effort should be made to separate the two group.