Issue Brief

Date: 19-10-2019

Prepared By: public information officer

Point of Contact:

Email: xyz@gmail.com

Issue: Heart disease risk factors

Summary:

There are various risk factors for cardiovascular disease, which are behavior, habits, critical conditions, circumstances that can increase risk of developing this type of disease. There is some common reason behind this disease, which are lack of exercise, family history, unhealthy eating, age, diabetes, and smoking (ADA, 2019).  

Background:

• It is a huge disease that can affect the heart and circulatory system.

• It is a problem for persons, which are less effective for basic things, such as exercise, bad habits, and many others (World-heart-federation, 2017).   

• It can create a critical condition of the patients

Rationale and Analysis:

• Most of the death is premature death according to national center for health statistics.

Source: (Remington, et al., 2015)

• According to the survey, behaviors have changed because of various things, which is not good for the heart.

Source: (Remington, et al., 2015)

• it is a huge problem and it can affect the future of people.

Recommended Action:

• there are various things to overcome the risk factors for cardiovascular diseases, such as motivation for exercise, diet control, good habits, and many others. There are some risks, which can be controlled using medical and psychological practices, such as exercise, diet, smoking, and many others. However, some problems cannot reduce risk of cardiovascular disease, such family history, diabetes, and more (Remington, et al., 2015).      

• Most of the risks can cover using a different method, like exercise and other diet-related issues. I want to suggest reduce use of tobacco, which is a strong reason behind cardiovascular disease.

References

ADA, 2019. Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors. [Online]
Available at: https://ada.com/cardiovascular-disease-risk-factors/
[Accessed 19 October 2019].

Remington, P. L., Catlin, B. B. & Gennuso, K. P., 2015. The County Health Rankings: rationale and methods. Population health metrics, 13(1), p. 11.

World-heart-federation, 2017. Risk factors. [Online]
Available at: https://www.world-heart-federation.org/resources/risk-factors/
[Accessed 19 October 2019].

MYTH ONE

Various studies have shown that organic food is one of the main sources of toxins. For example, Ditlevsen, Sandøe & Lassen, (2019) suggest that plants get contaminated by pathogens such as E. coli and salmonella that arise from raw manure applied to the soil these plants are planted. These microorganisms come from the stomachs of animals like cows and sheep and are shed in their manure. The microorganism then transfers to plants itself, for example, microorganisms are normally protected from contaminating plants by the use of sanitizing agents. However, Ditlevsen, Sandøe & Lassen, (2019) have shown that E-coli can sustain the sanitizing agents and pass from manure to contaminate water in the inner tissues of organic lettuces. This study showed that the bacteria entered the edible portions of the plant and when such plants are consumed, toxins are introduced into the body.

MYTH TWO

Food fortification is of great importance to the health of people. This is so because, through food fortification, nutrient gaps in the diet can be filled. During food processing nutrients can be lost in the food. Food fortification is the best way that these lost nutrients can be replaced. Vitamins and minerals can be delivered to a larger portion of the population without requiring behavior change or diet change if food fortification is adopted. For example, widespread deficiencies of iodine and vitamin D were historically seen to cause an increased rate of goiter and rickets in Europe (Gharibzahedi & Jafari, 2017). However, after the introduction of iodized salt since 1922, the rates of iodine in most of the European countries have reduced drastically.  

MYTH THREE

GMO foods have a lot of health benefits and are very safe for people to eat. GMO foods are safe because their production involves less use of herbicides and pesticides. Many studies have shown that herbicides and pesticides are the major sources of hazards on croplands. These hazards from herbicides and pesticides are dangerous to human health. However, farmers growing GMO foods don’t need pesticides and herbicides which makes GMO foods very safe for human consumption (Ruth et al., 2016). Also, the nutritious content of GMO foods can be improved. Since the nutritious content can be altered, people can take lower levels of food with higher nutritious content which is good for their health.

MYTH FOUR

Globally, the U.s food supply is known to be the world’s best. Pesticides, GMOs, food additives are all kept under control by the U.S department of agriculture (USDA). For example, the summary of the 2017 pesticide data program (PDP) as established and published by the environmental protection Agency that was published showed that the pesticide residues in the 99% of all the samples tested were below the benchmark levels (Sax, 2015). Also, both domestic and imported foods in the U.S are thoroughly tested by the USDA with a close focus on foods that children and infants consume. Further to this, the EPA conducts a dietary risk assessment to ensure that all foods in the country have pesticides residues are not above the acceptable levels. 

Reference

Ditlevsen, K., Sandøe, P., & Lassen, J. (2019). Healthy food is nutritious, but organic food is healthy because it is pure: The negotiation of healthy food choices by Danish consumers of organic food. Food quality and preference, 71, 46-53.

Gharibzahedi, S. M. T., & Jafari, S. M. (2017). The importance of minerals in human nutrition: Bioavailability, food fortification, processing effects, and nanoencapsulation. Trends in Food Science & Technology, 62, 119-132.

Ruth, T. K., Rumble, J. N., Gay, K. D., & Rodriguez, M. T. (2016). The Importance of Source: A Mixed Methods Analysis of Undergraduate Students’ Attitudes Toward Genetically Modified Food. Journal of Agricultural Education, 57(3), 145-161.

Sax, J. K. (2015). Dietary supplements are not all safe and not all food: How the low cost of dietary supplements preys on the consumer. American journal of law & medicine, 41(2-3), 374-394.

Biomedical Sciences With Foundation BSC Honours

Response to Task 1

Ahmed, N., Glencross, H. and Wang, Q. eds., (2016). Biomedical Science Practice. Publisher: Oxford University Press

The author in this book has given a basic introduction about what is biomedical science and its applications in treatment of diseases in humans. Different methods like the diagnosis of blood samples, urine, X-ray technique and many more have been discussed.

This book is well written and is good for those who are new to biomedical science

Blann, A. (2018). British Journal of Biomedical Science in 2018: what have we learned?. British Journal of Biomedical Science, 76(1), pp.1-10

In 2018, British Journal of Biomedical Science has published 40 research articles of biomedical science out of which 24 were original articles and 16 were short reports.

This journal has been well structured and well written and kept count on the number of works done in 2018 in biomedical science.

Gunn, J., Ledford, C., Mousetes, S. and Grever, M. (2017). Biomedical Science Undergraduate Major: A New Pathway to Advance Research and the Health Professions. Teaching and Learning in Medicine, 30(2), pp.184-192

There are many students who enter in professional degree programs in biomedical science but are not well prepared regarding scientific knowledge on what exactly is biomedical science. In a period of 10 years students were interviewed and selected in Ohio State University and average ACT score was 32.6 and the pass percentage was 91%. This was done to give them an idea about biomedical science and excel in this field.

This article is well structured but lacks a coherent data organization.

Sharp, P. and Langer, R. (2011). Promoting Convergence in Biomedical Science. Science, 333(6042), pp.527-527.

The author states that there are many challenges in biomedical science to solve highly integrated and complexed problems in human body. Most of them are beyond knowledge and technology. Convergence is increasing and advancing in field of biomedical sciences.

This article is well structured but lacks a coherent data organization.

 

Response to Task 2

Other than coursework biomedical sciences can also be useful and applied in our daily life (both theoretically and practically) especially during routine checkups. A student of biomedical science can easily understand what is in the report of a patient especially blood report (like haemoglobin content, platelet count, bilirubin content, red blood cells and many more) and can tell whether the health of the patient is normal or not. Other than this, students can go for higher studies in this branch of science which has led to inventions of analysis and treatment of different kinds of diseases affecting human body. If it becomes successful then it could benefit society as well as it could make the student successful in life. A person can also work in different fields including patent law, consulting, public policy and science journalism and excel in these fields as well. Since biomedical science is a huge branch of medical science, there is scope for almost everything related to medical science.