Health and nutrition

Diet has always played a vital role in supporting peoples health, as body requires carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, and minerals to maintain healthy organs, bones, muscles, nerves, and to produce hormones and chemicals that are necessary for the proper function of organs. Therefore, our eating habits and lifestyle have an important effect on our well-being, as it is now believed that all chronic diseases are accompanied by nutritional deficiencies and imbalances in the essential chemical elements that make up the body.

Firstly, we live in an era of speed and technology where rapid changes in diets and lifestyles have occurred as industrialization, urbanization, economic development and market globalization have accelerated over the past decade. While standards of living have improved and food availability has expanded and become more diversified, there have also been significant negative consequences in terms of decreased physical activities and increased tobacco use, which are known to be the triggers of cardiovascular diseases. The modern man spends most of his time sitting in front of a computer, in a car or in front of the TV, eating processed food rich in saturated fat and low in unrefined carbohydrates, stressed about different tasks, inappropriate dietary patterns and sedentarism making him a possible victim of cardiovascular disease (CVD), hypertension and stroke.

Moreover, cancer is a known major cause of mortality throughout the world and, in the developed world, it is generally exceeded only by cardiovascular diseases. Almost all cancers (8090%) are caused by environmental factors, and of these, 3040% of cancers are directly linked to the diet. The primary dietary factors that increase risk are obesity and alcohol consumption; consumption of coffee is associated with a reduced risk of liver cancer. Studies have linked consumption of red or processed meat to an increased risk of breast cancer, colon cancer, and pancreatic cancer, a phenomenon which could be

due to the presence of carcinogens in foods cooked at high temperatures. Thus, dietary recommendations for cancer prevention typically include a vegan diet: mainly vegetables, fruit, whole grains, nuts & legumes, while completely omitting an intake of red meat, milk-products, animal fat and refined sugar, which is totally different to the usual meals of a typical Romanian citizen. In conclusion, as the Father of Medicine himself stated, Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food -Hippocrates, nutrition represents life support, as it provides the nutrients necessary for proper functioning of the organism. In respect to this, with a healthy diet we are certain of being protected from the most common health problems related to food intake or consumption, as poor health is generally caused by imbalanced nutrition, either through excess or deficiency and a lack of exercise.