Non-communicable diseases have been increasing in recent decades, and have replaced communicable diseases as the leading cause of mortality globally. I hypothesized these non-communicable diseases have a strong anthropogenic (man-made) component. To test the hypothesis, I conducted a study that would identify pervasive ’causes’ of disease. These are causes/contributing factors that would impact many diseases. Additionally, these ’causes’ were restricted to foundational ’causes’, tangible items that, for the most part, would be actionable (e.g., excessive smoking, excessive alcohol intake, excessive exposures to radiation, etc)
The results were reported in a recent eBook [1]. They showed myriad contributing factors to all major diseases, with some diseases having hundreds of potential foundational causes. While the different contributing factors had different weightings, it became clear that the translation of the ‘stimulus’ provided by each contributing factor to the emergence of a disease resulted from the synergy of multiple ‘stimuli’ operating in concert.