M6 Discussion – Cardiovascular Disease and Cancer

Cardiovascular Disease and Cancer
Student’s Name
Institution’s Name
Cardiovascular Disease and Cancer
Cardiovascular Disease
Cardiovascular diseases are disorders that alter the normal functioning of the heart and blood vessels. Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) originate from one’s lifestyle (American Heart Association, 2017). Behavioral acts of having an unhealthy diet, lack of physical activity, smoking, and alcohol use contributes to the emergence of CVDs. The effects of engaging in harmful activities may show up as raised blood pressure, overweight, and obesity among many other consequences. The outlined consequences of unhealthy behaviors enhance the chances of developing a heart attack or failure and other CVDs.
From Life’s Simple seven video a healthy lifestyle must have seven goals. The goals are, managing blood pressure, control of cholesterol, reduce blood sugar, engage in physical activity, lose weight, and stop smoking. The Simple seven video advocates for healthy living through discouraging and encouraging unhealthy and healthy activities respectively. Heart attacks occur as a consequence of poor eating habits and obesity (American Heart Association, 2016). The video advocates for weight loss and eating of healthy meals. The control of cholesterol goes into the steps aimed at keeping arteries free of a clog. Also, there is the management of blood pressure for it is a significant risk factor for heart disease and stroke. Majority of the seven ways of simple, healthy living are ways of handling causes of CVDs (American Heart Association, 2016).

Cancer
Cancer is a name used to refer to a group of diseases known to create abnormal cells in the body. Cancerous cells form in the body after interaction of a person’s genes with external agents (WHO, 2018). The foreign agents can either be physical, chemical, or biological. For physical factors, they are ultraviolet and ionizing radiation. Chemical cancer-causing agents are asbestos, tobacco smoke, aflatoxin, arsenic. For natural carcinogens, there is the infection from viruses, bacteria, and parasites (WHO, 2018).
Cancer is partially a behavioral disease as the use of alcohol and tobacco, lack of physical activity, and unhealthy diet, are significant causes of cancer. The outlined triggers are the four known risk factors for noncommunicable diseases. Up to 50% of cancer cases can get prevented if risk factors are avoided (WHO, 2018). Also modification of risk factors can help lower the possibility of developing cancer. Tobacco use is the number one risk factor, responsible for 22% of all cancers (WHO, 2018).
External cancer-causing risk factors depend on where one lives. Not all areas in the world have high levels of ultraviolet exposure and ionizing radiation. For that case, it all depends on where one lives for there to exist environmental carcinogens (TED, 2010). For chemical risk factors, there are asbestos and tobacco smoke among many others as outlined above. Prolonged exposure to asbestos, tobacco smoke, and arsenic items would increase one’s cancer contraction chances. Arsenic exists in water; a particular region may have water high in arsenic while some other place there is clean dirt free water. Bacteria soccur freely in the environment, from geographical data, one gets to know what kind of bacteria is prevalent in a specific place (TED, 2010). It is necessary to determine the amounts of bacteria in an area as it combines with parasites and some virus to lay a foundation for cancer.
Healthy living depends so much on what people engage in on a daily basis. For a person to live a healthy life, a healthy lifestyle must get adopted. Also, where a person chooses to spend most of their time happens to be one of the healthy living choices that need to get considered seriously (TED, 2010).
References
American Heart Association. (2016). Life’s Simple 7: Eat Better. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/2djB5k-HbIUAmerican Heart Association. (2017). What is Cardiovascular Disease? Heart.org. Retrieved 6 February 2018, from http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/What-is-Cardiovascular-Disease_UCM_301852_Article.jsp
TED. (2010). Bill Davenhall: Your health depends on where you live. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/62cNtvx6P8EWHO. (2018). Cancer. Retrieved 6 February 2018, from http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs297/en/