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Abstract
Lifestyle has seen a tremendous change in the past few decades. Globalization and urbanization has made the world smaller. With advancement in science and technology, human mortality has decreased tremendously due to invention of new treatment modalities, vaccines, newer and effective drugs. But the lifestyle changes and sedentary pattern has also paved way for development of new lifestyle related disorders especially obesity, diabetes mellitus, hypercholesterolemia and hypertension which impose a major threat not only to human life but also to economic burden of the world. Traditional era had less incidence of these disorders compared to the industrial era today. Though increase in blood pressure and cholesterol level are considered age related changes in western countries, there exists a steep curve in the incidence of these disorders as age advances. Further, evidences are adequate to indicate hypertension and dyslipidemia are prevalent even in middle aged adults. Increased susceptibility of a few individuals to lifestyle related changes can also be attributed to their genetic variability. It has been estimated that more than 70% of cardiovascular morbidity, over 80% of coronary artery disease and about 90% of diabetes can be attributed to few of the lifestyle related factors. Even a slight alteration in lifestyle has a great impact on individual health and economic burden. Smoking is identified as one of the major lifestyle factor which has its adverse effects not only on those who smoke but also to other members in the proximity by way of passive smoking. Though the hazards of smoking and its impact on health have been emphasized to a greater extent, eradication of smoking has become next to impossible. Decline in smoking substantially reduces cardiovascular risk but the practice of smoking has seen only an upward slope. Likewise, alcoholism is another social factor which has multitude of effects on health particularly cardiovascular disorders.