Nutition and Disease

Nutrition can impact our lives in many ways we never thought possible or maybe just never thought about at all. The truth is that nutrition and diease have a lot in common. There are some diseases that are caused by poor nutrition and there are some diseases that may be improved by good nutrition or a certain diet.

In a chart put out by heathyliving.org, it shows that the mortality rate of people with nutrition related deaths is at an all time high.



This means that many of these deaths were preventable. Lets take heart disease. The leading cause of nutrition related death. A diet filled with saturated fats can contribute to cardiovascular disease by clogging the arteries and restricting blood flow to the heart. Regular exercise and a healthy balanced diet low in trans and saturated fat, calories, salt and cholesterol can prevent cardiovascular disease. Think about fats such as butter or oil. The more saturated fat something has, the more solid it is at room temperature....that saturated fat clogs your arteries restricting blood flow and causing major heart problems.

Now, lets take a quick look at a disease that is not caused by nutrition but may be impoved by a certain diet. I'm going to take Multilple Sclerosis as an example because my husband has it and I have researched it in full. Aregular low fat, high fiber diet is cited to be the best one for MS patients but new studies are talking about the importance of Vitamin D in correlation with MS. This video clip gives more information:

References:

http://healthy-living.org/assets/images/Imagesdiseasechart.gif

http://www.nationalmssociety.org/Living-Well-With-MS/Health-Wellness/Nutrition

Sizer, F. & Whitney, E. (2013). Nutrition: Concepts and Controversies (13th ed.). Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.