The Role of Diabetes and Smoking in Heart Attacks and Strokes - Essay Example

Kaplan (2012) in her article published in Los Angeles Times stated that people with high blood pressure, high levels of cholesterol, and smoking habits are more likely to have heart attacks and other health complications like cardiovascular disease including death. The New England Journal of Medicine analyzed health data on more than 250,000 adults including whites and blacks to confirm that people who had any of these complications were in greater danger than people who did not.

This clearly shows that smoking and diabetes can lead to other kinds of health complications that can lead to death. There has been a change in the trend with chronic diseases being replaced by acute diseases and heart diseases, cancer, and strokes topping the chart. The most important point about these diseases is the knowledge of contributing factors are largely known but because of the changes in the social environment like the aging population, and change in the nature and impact of the disease; sometimes, it becomes hard to analyze the whole study to come up with proper findings.

The next part of the discussion presents a thorough analysis of seven uses of epidemiology and how it can be related to the rise of diabetes amongst the people of the US. It needs to be mentioned that the analysis is based on the article published in Los Angeles Times and the understanding has been presented critically. Seven Uses of EpidemiologyTo study the history of the health of populations- it is important to keep a tab on the rise and fall of diabetes amongst the people of the US. It has been observed that there has been a rise in diabetes in the last few years (Briand (2010) To diagnose the health of the community- It is important to analyze the nature and impact of the disease and its impact on the mortality within the community taking into the account that society is changing and health problems are changing.

As per the article published in Los Angeles Times, researchers found that blacks have more risk factors than whites and are at higher risk of heart problems. To study the working of health services- Doctors need to prevent people from developing such diseases rather than treating them after diagnosing the disease in the short as well as in the long run. To estimate the common risk of individuals- the common risk of individuals is associated with their culture and environmental factors.

Blacks are more prone to heart diseases and diabetes compared to whites because they carry more risk factors. To identify syndromes- Among men, 45 years old had a 1.4% risk of having cardiovascular disease before they turn 80. For heart attacks only, the risk was 1.7% for healthy men and 47% for the least healthy. The clinical picture of chronic diseases- the clinical phenomenon shows that people who did not smoke and had controlled cholesterol levels and blood pressure were at the low-risk end of suffering from heart attacks and strokes. Causes of health and disease- heart attacks and strokes are caused by high cholesterol, diabetes, and obesity that need to be controlled.

The study conducted by the New England Journal of Medicine includes raw data from 180 cohort studies and also including the Framingham Heart Study, the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial, the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults study, and the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis; it was ascertained that people of the age group 45, 55, 65, 75 had different kinds of heart diseases and complications based on diabetes, high cholesterol, and other health issues. The data also allowed the researcher to think about why blacks are more prone to heart problems compared to whites along with giving the message of preventing the disease rather than curing it.