ISSN 1683-3805

dren who are overweight before puberty will
be overweight in early adulthood, reducing
the average age at which non-communicable
diseases become apparent and greatly increasing
the burden on health services, which
have to provide treatment during much of
their adult lives. (Branca, Nikogosian, & Lobstein,
2007) The current epidemic of obesity
is caused largely by an environment that promotes
excessive food intake and discourages
physical activity. (French, Story, & Jeffery,
2001) Through the years there have been
fluctuations in healthy shopping and eating
trends. The worldwide prevalence of obesity
continues to increase, with devastating implications
for overall health. Epidemiological
trends indicate the primary contributors are
environmental (e.g., increased caloric intake,
lack of exercise). Increased body mass index
(BMI) is associated with an increase in allcause
mortality and in diseases related to this
increasing mortality rate, such as diabetes
mellitus, cardiovascular disease, and cancer,
including those of the gastrointestinal system.
Some of these associations are even more
pronounced when obesity is measured by
waist-to-hip ratio, a marker of visceral adipose
tissue, versus BMI. Higher BMI is related
to increased risk of developing gall
stones, and obese patients experience GI
symptoms, such as vomiting and diarrhoea,
more often compared with those of normal
body mass. Although the exact cause remains
uncertain, these symptoms may be connected
to eating habits or to changes in gastrointestinal
motility. (Moayyedi, 2008) .
A recent study that examined the long-term
effect of habitual diet on risks of incident diabetes,
coronary heart disease, and mortality
has shown that a healthy eating pattern that
included fruit, vegetables, whole-meal bread,
low-fat dairy, and little alcohol reduced risks
of diabetes and major coronary events.
Such dietary patterns offer considerable
health benefits to individuals and contribute
to public health. (Brunner, et al., 2008)
Nutrition and lifestyle
Nutrition and lifestyle are well-defined modulators
of chronic diseases. Poor dietary habits
and a sedentary lifestyle clearly contribute to
increasingly compromised quality of life. It is
becoming
increasingly clear that nutrition can modulate
the toxicity of environmental pollutants. Certain
diets can contribute to compromised
health by being a source of exposure to environmental
toxic pollutants. Many of these
pollutants are fat soluble, and thus fatty foods
often contain higher levels of persistent organics
than vegetable matter. Nutrition can
dictate the lipid content, oxidative stress, and
antioxidant status within cells. The modulation
of these parameters by an individual’s
nutritional status may have profound effects
on biological processes, and in turn influence
the effects of environmental pollutants to
cause disease or dysfunction. It is recommended
that future directions in environmental
health research explore this nutritional
paradigm that incorporates a consideration
of the relationships between nutrition
and lifestyle, exposure to environmental toxicants,
and disease. Nutritional interventions
may provide the most sensible means to develop
primary prevention strategies of diseases
associated with many environmental
toxic insults. (Hennig, et al., 2007)
Allergy and lifestyle
A considerable part of the Western population
suffers from some form of allergy, and
the incidence is still rising with no sign of an
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