Two interesting articles on BBC Health recently.
The first talks about a University of Toronto study which claims that one death in 25 is linked to alcohol consumption – one in 10 in Europe and one in seven in the former Soviet Union. The researchers say, “Globally, the effect of alcohol on burden of disease is about the same size as that of smoking in 2000, but it is greatest in developing countries.”
These include India and China, where alcohol consumption is rapidly increasing.
Women’s consumption of alcohol is increasing rapidly, but men are still five times more likely to die from alcohol-related illness, and young people are more likely to be negatively affected by alcohol than older people.
The paper says that, although there have been some benefits of moderate drinking in relation to cardiovascular disease, these are far outweighed by the detrimental effects of alcohol on disease and injury.
In addition to diseases directly caused by drinking, such as liver disorders, a wide range of other conditions such as mouth and throat cancer, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, depression and stroke are linked to drinking.
Depression is a particularly worrying one, since global rates of depression are rising anyhow (though the cause and effect relationship between depression and drinking often goes both ways). So is cancer – according to the other BBC article (by Professor Martin Wiseman of the Global Cancer Research Fund), cancer rates are predicted to double in the next 40 years.
photo credit: DON PUGH PERTH WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Prof. Wiseman, who appears well-named, states: “scientists estimate about a third of the most common cancers could be prevented if people ate healthily, maintained a healthy weight and were regularly physically active.” His article recommends adopting the model of Bogota in Columbia, which has deliberately restructured the city to be friendlier to walking and cycling. This is good news for the New Zealand Government’s National Cycleway Project, too (and I’m seeing more cycleways round and about Auckland, though there is a long way to go before they become a viable network, and I still wouldn’t ride a bicycle here myself).
In terms of health improvement, the recommendations are the usual ones: stay active, eat healthily, drink moderately if at all, stop smoking or don’t start – we’ve heard all these a thousand times. There’s often a crucial gap, though, between what we know we ought to do and what we actually end up doing. Somehow some part of ourselves sabotages the process and we end up back in our old patterns.
That’s what I set out to change with hypnotherapy. People who come to me usually know how to live healthily and they want to do it, but there is that gap between desire and action. In a relaxed state, your mind can bridge that gap and help you live better, more healthily and (we hope) for longer.
Technorati Tags: exercise, cancer, alcohol, hypnotherapy, motivation, healthy lifestyle, personal change
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