Asthma, Allergies, Obesity, Breast Cancer, Autism -- are these all rising statistically?

[Sparkly]

Are we seeing rises in all of these, statistically?

If so, how does American incidence of them compare with the rest of the world?

And is anything in particular causing them, do you think?

I know there are debates about inoculations and autism, for example; I've often wondered about what they give dairy cows in relation to breast cancer, but this is all WAY outside my fields of knowledge.

I'm also not sure why obesity is a topic today, but good arguments are made that this epidemic is recent without obvious causes.

Thoughts? :shrug:

[SoCalDem]

1. Excess and massive exposure to all kinds of freaky chemical combinations

in our "modern" world, would be my uneducated guess:(

[Sparkly]

2. Yeah, that's kinda what I'm wondering.

:(

[SoCalDem]

9. and the complexity and inability to definitively "link" them all to specific

ailments "protects" the scoundrels who make these things from ever being held accountable....and even if we "stopped" using/consuming things with them in it, on it, of it..there are too many in our environment, and the exposure probably has already happened..

We'll just never know..for sure..we can only try to "fix" the damage done..on a case by case basis, and hope it does not "happen" in our family:(

[ironrooster]

3. my uneducated guess would be

life expectancy still fairly high but over periods of long term stress
(and poor diets) leads to a body's fuck-up-id-ness.

[WCGreen]

4. I believe a good chunk of the increase is due to better collection of medical

data. Not all of the increase can be attributed to better compilation, but some of it has to be.

[dgibby]

5. I think a great deal of illness is caused/exacerbated by

environmental toxins. No doubt in my mind that we're killing ourselves with chemicals.

[SmileyRose]

6. IMHO

The human body is way too complicated and varied a "machine" to boil any malady down to one or even a couple of things. What we eat, how we live, where we live, economics, mental state, social climate - there are just too many variables to make any blanket statements regarding medical anything.

As far as the rest of the developed world, our health problems don't seem to be much different, but our lifespan is shorter and we tend to spend more money at the end of life ( a lot more ). Whether this is a function of diet, or pollutants, or the car culture rather than walking to public transport, or that other countries are more likely to have multi-generational households than we do - there are a lot of factors involved.

[LeftyMom]

7. Better diagnosis in some cases.

My old neighbor was in his 40's before his Aspergers was diagnosed. When he was young all anybody told his family was that his behaviors were a bit like Autism but that wasn't it. Now he has a diagnosis, but he was officially "normal" until somebody gave his traits a name. I'm sure there are a lot of people like that.

Likewise, a lot of smaller tumors get caught now. Incidence of cancer may be higher, but there's probably also a lot more cancers being caught that were previously missed.

[Christa]

8. Refind foods

and I blame many of the medications as well - big pharma don't want to see you get well, or heaven forbid; healed! Take all the side effects of the medication into account as well.

[Zynx]

10. Think how much better diagnosis is today than it used to be.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

11. Better scientific methods - better diagnostics -

and better communication systems, so we hear about these things that we'd never have known before.

Mostly, the obesity thing is the portion size in the United States. I mean, the concept of "all-you-can-eat" buffets is one of our most dangerous inventions.

Plus, we sit on our asses at computers, and we drive. Our forefathers walked and did manual labor. We get paid for thinking and producing the results of those thoughts; then we celebrate with a really big lunch..................

[Manifestor_of_Light]

12. autoimmune problems are huge. Many diseases.

And many diseases are caused or made worse by inflammation (coronary artery disease). Inflammation happens when the adrenal glands are not producing enough cortisol to control inflammation. Adrenal fatigue usually happens from unrelenting stress. And all of us are expected to work ourselves into exhaustion and illness for our bosses, who scream and yell at us.

:wtf:

And the idea that if you grow up in a dirty house, you will have a strong immune system when you grow up, is bull. I grew up in an unairconditioned, filthy, dusty house, with cats and dogs and roaches, and I had a runny nose all the time when I was a kid. I still have allergies that interfere with my life fifty years later.

[leftofcool]

13. Yep, refined foods, bad air, bad environment, bad water

all causes of the mentioned diseases.

[KT2000]

14. I encourage you to read

the environmental health literature - which is separate from medical mainstream literature and treatment. Much is being learned about the role of chemicals in many of our most problematic illnesses - esp. those that are increasing.
Environmental Health Perspectives is a well respected journal published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, which is part of the National Institutes of Health.

Environmental health Perspectives
Silent Spring Institute www.silentspring.org
International Journal of Occupational Health www.ijoeh.com
Environment and Human Health www.ehhi.org

for a start