Food plantsA valuable source of supplements for human health

摘要

It is very interesting to evaluate how the disease incidence linked to specific pathologies and mortality has changed in the population over the last two centuries. In a recent article published for the 200th anniversary in the New England Journal ofMedicine [1], some interesting considerations in this regard were reported (Fig. 1). For example, it is demonstrable that in 1900, pneumonia/influenza, tuberculosis and gastrointestinal infections were among the 10 main causes of death. These pathologieshad completely disappeared in the 2010 list, where the highest incidences of deaths were due to cancer, cardiovascular diseases, cerebrovascular diseases, Alzheimer's, respiratory diseases (non-infective but caused by pollution!) and diabetes. In short,there has been a real epidemiological revolution, which obviously also questions the role of traditional medicine and health systems; today, they are still largely oriented toward therapeutic rather than preventive intervention.