Africa's chronic disease burden is attributed to multifaceted factors including increased life expectancy, changing lifestyle practices, poverty, urbanisation and globalisation [ 1].
The rapid global increase in the number of individuals with type 2 diabetes (T2D) was considered caused by increasing life expectancy, sedentary lifestyle and disadvantageous diet habits, possibly in combination with genetic and environmental factors [ 1, 2].
Food was perceived as less nutritious than in the past and men attributed this increased use of pesticides to poor health and reduced life expectancy: 'the lifestyle [in previous generations] was very different and that's the reason old people are still healthy and living.
It might even be said that diabetes mellitus has become an epidemic disease that evolves in parallel with the aging population and increase in life expectancy, unhealthy lifestyle by transition to a Western-style diet (refined foods and saturated fats), sedentarism, and increasing prevalence of overweightness/obesity [ 4].
Higher life expectancy, changing lifestyles, and improved medical technology are all factors that increase their prevalence [ 2].
The prevalence of CVD is increasing because of changed life expectancies, unhealthy lifestyles, and improved treatment options [ 2, 3].
Causal factors of vitamin D deficiency include aging [ 15], longer life expectancy [ 16], lifestyle habits [ 17], and metabolic disorders [ 18].
The increasing incidence is partly due to increased life expectancy, but changes in lifestyle factors are also likely to be important.
In the first decade of the 21st century, China has been one of the most rapidly developing countries in the world with an increase in life expectancy and changes in lifestyle [ 4].
Following rapid economic growth, increase in life expectancy, and changes in lifestyle [ 2, 3], diabetes becomes one of the major public health issues also in Turkey [ 1, 4, 5].
