"Beginning in the last years of the nineteenth century and continuing into the twentieth, we experienced the second epidemiological transition. With modern medical science providing immunizations and antibiotics and with better public health measures and improved nutrition, many infectious diseases were brought under control or even, as with smallpox, eliminated. In terms of what ailed and killed us, there was a shift to chronic, degenerative diseases such as cancers and cardiac, circulatory, and pulmonary diseases. The increase in many of these came not only from the fact that fewer people were dying from infectious diseases and were living longer but also from the results of modern lifestyles in developed countries and among the upper classes of developing countries- a more sedentary life leading to less physical activity; more stress; environmental pollution; diets contributing to obesity, clogged arteries, and diabetes; and smoking and alcohol consumption."
-Michael Alan Park
Biological Anthropology, Sixth Edition
Disease and Human Populations
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