Re: Young adults at risk of cardiovascular disease: research Regarding your editorial of February 3, 2010, the saying, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” could not fit more perfectly to portray the increased risk of cardiovascular disease, many Canadians face today. Not only has the number of Canadians at risk of cardiovascular and metabolic disease almost doubled, as rightfully stated in your article, but now a whole new generation has been deemed at risk. Middle-aged people no longer hold the title of being the ones at risk of heart disease now, as new, much younger contenders move in to share some of the limelight.
In your article, you have held your findings to numbers presented by the Ontario Medical Association. To further validate your argument, I have come across a study where the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada officially declared young adults, aged 20 to 29, as Canada’s “new at risk” group. This goes hand-in-hand with the statement the OMA’s president, Dr. Suzzane Strasberg, made about doctors, who would soon be treating patients in their 30s and 40s for blindness, kidney failure and heart disease, as quoted in your article.
The connection to the two can be clearly seen. Having stated that, I would like to investigate even further and present you with a study conducted by Heart Niagara, a charitable group that provides screenings in high schools and helps bolster the health curriculum. Their findings indicated that 1 in 5 teens, aged 14 to 15, had high blood pressure or high cholesterol, which put them on the fast track to potential heart disease; a trend that exemplifies clearly, the aforementioned findings of the OMA and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.
In your article, Dr. Strasberg states that it is Ontarians’ poor lifestyle choices have put people at higher risk for chronic disease compared to their parents and grandparents. This statement is especially befitting to the current day and age we live in. With the emergence of computers, video games, cable television, among other comforts and conveniences, people have become more sedentary, getting little to no exercise. They have become seasoned to living a life of comfort. Dr.
Strasberg goes onto mention, “when I was a child, I used to play outside on the street. Now, kids spend an enormous amount of time surfing the Net and playing video games after school. ” This can be observed with the new generation of children, who grow up watching television and playing video games, rather than engage in physical activities outside, when the aforementioned forms of entertainment were less popular or unavailable on the scale they are today. Another factor that puts people at risk is poor diet.
There has been as epidemic of fast-food chains, frozen foods, processed foods, which have almost become a staple in diet and as a result, replaced wholesome nutrition. Views of food have shifted from a nutritional standpoint to more of a gratifying one. People, therefore, become deficient in essential minerals, vitamins, and at the same time, take in an excess of empty calories that offer little to no nutrition. Adding to this, stress is another major player adding to the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
More and more responsibilities are piled onto job roles, thereby increasing workload significantly. This is turn causes stress, leading to high blood pressure, mental illness, and various other conditions that set the stage for the emerging epidemic of cardiovascular disease. As I read in your article, Dr. Strasberg clearly warns, “This fundamental impact on our health-care system will be enormous. ” I have a strong inclination to agree with this statement that Dr. Strasberg so befittingly put, as this presents severe implications for our already crumbling health-care system.
Emergency wait times are arguably high at present, and with the onset a whole new generation of people needing to make hospital visits, these wait times would grow substantially. To accommodate for this, the government would have to shell out additional funding into the health care system, and in turn, would lead to increased taxes to facilitate the process. However, money isn’t the answer to everything and it is a poor answer to resolving this concern. The government needs to take measures and implement programs to help fight this onset of cardiovascular disease.
