According to the World Health Organization, heart disease and stroke are the world’s biggest killers, accounting for a combined 15.2 million deaths in 2016. These diseases have remained the leading causes of death globally in the last 15 years.
- Heart disease
- Stroke
- COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease)
- Lower respiratory infections
- Alzheimer & dementia
- Trachea, bronchus & lung cancer
- Diabetes
(SOURCE: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death)
Do you know what all of these have in common? They're all highly correlated with metabolic syndrome. The scary thing is, it's getting worse, not better. Even scarier, we don't really know the cause. We know it's tied to insulin resistance and obesity, but not really sure of the causality. We know it's tied to diet, but there's conflicting evidence on that: too much sugar? Too much fat? Too much processed foods? Or just too much, period?
Metabolic syndrome certainly isn't the cause of all the deaths from those top 7 killers, but it probably accounts for the vast majority of heart disease, stroke, neurological disease, and definitely diabetes.
Ironically, even with the gaps in understanding that we have, we know it's treatable, in many cases without pharmaceuticals, just lifestyle changes. The world's biggest killer, and the only thing standing in the way of curing it is our own ignorance and apathy.