Ph.D. Antti Uutela. Finlandia
Presidente de la Sociedad Internacional de Medicina Conductual (ISBM)
E-mail: antti.uutela@ktl.fi

 

A new epidemic involving lifestyle dependent non communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer and diabetes seems to be spreading globally together with elevating BMI. The major causes for this epidemic, that I will be deal with my presentation, lay in the fact that natural selection made humans to excel in environments requiring regular physical activity of at least moderate kind while they had to survive with limited energy intake.

 

At present, increasingly societies move into sedentary direction but at the same time providing oversupply of energy in easily digested packages. Ergo, increase of conditions mentioned above. Abundant, but not yet sufficient evidence in behavioral medicine exists that lifestyle together with the genetic make-up of the population influences non-communicable disease morbidity and mortality quite substantially. Part of this evidence that is by no means uniform but culturally dependent involves consequences of the interplay between genes, environments and lifestyle. The cultural dependence of the results is certainly one reason of the continuation of this study strain. The suggested causes for the elevation of non-communicable disease risks at present are perhaps not changeable or at least not easily changeable because the material base of our living seems to rest on the auspices they provide.