I was curious to know what the top  leading causes of death were in Canada. Stats Canada reports “ the three leading causes of death in Canada were 1) cancer, 2) heart disease and 3) stroke.  These three causes of death were responsible for 58% of all deaths in Canada in 2005.”

Next question, is there something I can do to lower the incidence of all three at once?  What I found was that there are many factors which can lower the incidence of the top 3 causes of death.  Some in our control and some not.  The top three had the following  in common to lower the cause of death in a nutshell (not in any particular order):

  • no smoking
  • exercise
  • healthy diet
  • healthy weight
  • decrease alcohol consumption
  • health screening by your health practitioner

Given that making change is difficult, and its overwhelming to do everything at once, pick a starting point. It’s nice to know if I decide to pick one of the common denominators above I can lower the incidence of three of the leading causes of death, not one of them.  Once you take that change and ensure it is threaded into your daily routine, you can  pick another lifestyle choice and then another and then another and like a  waterfall cascading where you’ll quickly pick up momentum and eventually these good choices will become embedded in your day-to-day.

I’ve included some reference links below for those of you who are interested in more information.

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