Talk:Diseases of affluence/Archive 1

Obesity and Poverty
I think it should also be noted that within the world's most affluent countries such as the United States, the "diseases of affluence," especially obesity, disproportionately affect the poorest members of the society, for example, because packaged products, starches, sugary and salty foods, and fatty meats tend to be cheaper than say fresh produce, because poorer areas are less walkable, the poor have less time to exercise or less access to health clubs, or less energy for a workout after a day standing up (but not getting much exercise) which low wage service jobs typically require, etc. So the title "diseases of affluence," although useful to compare the types of diseases most deadly in rich countries with those found in the third world, is also misleading and maybe offensive, since the people in rich societies who tend to suffer from them are often far from affluent by the standards of these societies.


 * I don't believe this is the case. The lower the socio-economic level of most societies the more likely someone is to engage in strenuous work and have less labour saving devices. In the pima indian's the woman suffer more from the diseases, but have much harder working lifestyles. It's certainly a contentious point, and so doesn't belong in the article. Andybellenie (talk) 02:11, 10 November 2008 (UTC)


 * How about gout? Sounds like it would be the original "disease of affluence" if there ever was one. Cranston Lamont (talk) 19:30, 21 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm pretty sure it is from my studies in this area but we must have a reliable source before we can put it in the article. Andybellenie (talk) 02:11, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Merge?
This topic overlaps a lot with Lifestyle diseases. Is this the same concept? Maybe this page should be merged into it. Twelvethirteen (talk) 06:59, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * There's an overlap, but they're not the same thing. Alzheimer's disease, for example, is not considered a lifestyle disease, but it's a disease of affluence (because by nature it's uncommon in places with a shortened life expectancy). DanBishop (talk) 01:04, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Increased Leisure Time
While many of the other factors noted seem intuitively linked to the increased prevalence of the diseases mentionned, only one of the factors actually has a citation. This doesn't bother me too much, except for the listing of "increased leisure time" as a contributing factor to diseasesof affluence. I fail to see how leisure time intrinsically contributes to diseases of affluence; the necessary implication is that more time spent working would help us avoid these diseases, though I think that the medical difference between spending 8 hours working on a computer and spending 8 hours playing video games is rather small. Some forms of leisure contribute to good health and some to bad health, and the same goes for work. The point doesn't seem to be relevant, at least not superficially. As such, I have removed the point. If there is a citation to go with it, then that would be very interesting to include, and we should definately make note of it. If it is necessary to remove all uncited points in order to be fair, then so be it.GarrickW (talk) 10:22, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Auto-immune diseases and cleanliness
Autoimmune diseases are becoming commoner in affluent countries. Life in an affluent country tends, increasingly, to be hygeinic and free from parasites. There is evidence that infestation by parasites reduces the incidence of auutoimmune diseases. . This may be because parasites actively protect themselves by weakening the host's immune response; or because the immune system, with no "real work" to do, goes into overdrive and starts to regard a host tissue as an antigen.

My view is that autoimmune diseases (such as type 1 diabetes, asthma, and food allergies) should therefore be regarded as diseases of affluence, and included in this article. I propose adding a section on them, unless someone explains why I shouldn't. However, I am not medically qualified; I would prefer an editor who is to do the work. Maproom (talk) 20:55, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Possible ideas for revision of the page
This topic could be updated by adding on a few things like the data from WHO about the top ten diseases affecting high income countries. Also more detail could be added about each of those diseases, as to what is there prevalence , burden to the country , preventive measures taken to control the disease. The risk factors/ causes which are mentioned on the page could be elaborated with proper citations Priya 15:30, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Deleting the Cause section?
What about deleting the "cause" section in the beginning since we are expanding on the causes in the different disease sections? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lit8hn (talk • contribs) 02:42, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep:The point of the article is that there is a core set of causes that contributes to all of the diseases of affluence. P.S. Remember to sign your comments in Talk by typing four of ~ at the end. David notMD (talk) 03:13, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

note
I think that it should be noted that with the increase of longevity, a larger population tends to manifest diseases typical of an elderly age
 * Excellent point. What is needed is age-corrected prevalence of these diseases. Otherwise there is a false image of low prevalence of cancer or heart disease in impoverished countries with poor public heath quality, wherein people are dying younger from infectious diseases, etc. David notMD (talk) 11:09, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Wrong direction to article
The point of having an article about diseases of affluence is to confirm that these diseases are more common in countries with a higher per capita income and a largish middle and upper class. Too much of what is being added to the article is about prevention/treatment government programs in affluent countries with subsection titles such as "Public health initiatives." That content is not germane to the article. What is missing in some of these sections is comparisons of prevalence in non-affluent countries. David notMD (talk) 23:20, 7 November 2018 (UTC)


 * I think that social responses to any disease belong in articles about those diseases. You don't know what AIDS means if you don't learn anything about the stigma, laws, programs, and ongoing problems.  Disease has such content about how society reacts; Cancer has it; Breast cancer has it; and I see no reason why this article shouldn't be treated like any of these others.
 * I haven't looked at the particular content in question, so it might need quite a lot of revision to make it an encyclopedic summary, but as a general principle, there should be some content on the general subject of how society has responded to the existence of this concept and these major categories of diseases. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:33, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Lead in conflict with article
Lead has a sentence "Increasingly, research is finding that diseases thought to be diseases of affluence also appear in large part in the poor." This is not addressed in the body of the article. David notMD (talk) 03:17, 8 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Well, it probably should be. Obesity, diabetes, depression, etc., affect poorer people in affluent countries pretty significantly.
 * I wonder whether this concept was developed at a point when poor people were employed in strenuous physical labor (like digging ditches or manual farm labor) and affluent people sat around all day. A ==History== section, to describe the development of this idea, would not be out of place at this point.  A quick search of books shows that the phrase might have gained some currency around the 1940s or so.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:17, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Using United States as an example, people with larger incomes are more likely to be making wiser food and health choices, including exercise, while those who are poor and close to poor, cannot afford fruits and vegetables and are more likely to be cigarette smokers. From CDC: "In the U.S., people living below the poverty level and people having lower levels of educational attainment have higher rates of cigarette smoking than the general population." Reality is that affluent countries should not be treated as uniform data, as within those countries, rich and poor have different disease risks. David notMD (talk) 04:44, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
 * And this should be addressed in the article – both in the introduction and in the body. The typical poor person in a poor society dies of injuries and infectious diseases, usually after years of under-nutrition and physical labor.  The typical poor person in an affluent society gets diseases of affluence instead.  Let's get this concept directly in the article.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:30, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Kidney diseases section deleted
The Kidney diseases section was added, deleted, added again by the first editor, then deleted by a second editor. In the opinion of the second editor (me) there was no evidence presented that kidney diseases are diseases of affluence. Specifically, citing prevalence in affluent countries is not evidence of causality, especially as no risk factors were identified which are more common in affluent countries. David notMD (talk) 19:27, 14 November 2018 (UTC)


 * says that kidney stones are associated with diseases of affluence. Several of the "classic" ones (e.g., diabetes and hypertension) are major sources of kidney disease.
 * That said, there's a gap between "is this kind of disease" and "is a result of this kind of disease". I could be convinced to change my mind by any decent review article, but so far this sounds like kidney disease is a serious problem that results from diseases of affluence, rather than being one of those diseases independently.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:25, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Obesity increases risk of many diseases - including diabetes and hypertension - hence indirectly, kidney disease. CDC explains that connections between body weight and these diseases are complex, at time contradictory. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6650a1.htm David notMD (talk) 04:58, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I think the key question here is whether reliable sources are defining it as a disease of affluence, or merely saying that it's associated. If you're at risk for diseases of affluence, then you're also at risk for all kinds of things, including the "risk" of being able to obtain modern medical care, or the "risk" of having learned to read, or the "risk" of living in a place with paved streets and glass windows and clean drinking water.  But that doesn't mean that healthcare and education and modern infrastructure are diseases of affluence; those are just things that happen to go along with affluence.  They're linked, but not diseases of affluence, right?
 * So far, my quick check indicates that kidney diseases are described as things that happen to people who have (actual) diseases of affluence (such as diabetes), but the kidney diseases aren't actually diseases of affluence themselves. Therefore (unless other sources say something different), it should be omitted, or mentioned only in the context of the actual diseases of affluence that have a higher risk of kidney complications.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:40, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

WP:SYNC
content is being generated new here, and is not WP:SYNCed with the main page. Also many old/outdated sources are being added.

New content should be generated from the best and most recent refs available. It should be added to main article, and SYNCed back here... Not sure that so much detail is necessary here... Jytdog (talk) 17:32, 16 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Jytdog, I thought that this was the main page for the subject of diseases of affluence? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:57, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
 * It is basically a series of summaries of disease articles -- diseases that happen to be correlated to affluence. Jytdog (talk) 01:01, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Paleolithic not relevant
Paleolithic has a section on Paleolithic diet. Information on Paleolithic diet not relevant to this article. Hence deleted. David notMD (talk) 22:19, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

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 * Whimisical-people-lazy-glasses-b122d3584f170c38b31d5e3ae2a5e6b3.jpg