The reason is that there exists a systematic connection between complexity and modifiability: the more complex a phenomenon is, the more modifiable it is.
The primary causes of cardiovascular diseases poor diet, lack of exercise, and smoking are considered modifiable factors.
For children under five years of age, the report estimated that more than one-third of the disease burden was caused by modifiable environmental factors and that improvements in the environment could save the lives of up to four million children per year.
Such improvements suggest that sensitivity to simple (unidimensional) stimuli is not immutable, being modifiable through practice.
Certain risk factors—such as diet, physical activity, and use of tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs—are modifiable, although it is often difficult to effect such change, even if one is facing possible disability or premature death.
Some risk factors are modifiable to varying degrees; these include exposure to sunlight and other forms of radiation, biological agents, and chemical agents (e.g., air and water pollution) that may play a role in causing genetic mutations that have been associated with increased risk of certain diseases, particularly cancer.
Heredity plays a role in the development of the disease, but so do modifiable factors such as excess weight, physical inactivity, high alcohol intake, and diets high in salt.
Among the principles enunciated in the paper were that data and instructions should be kept in a single store and that instructions should be encoded so as to be modifiable by other instructions.
However, Dr Lustig did caution his study "does not prove that sugar is the sole cause of metabolic disease," but that "it clearly demonstrates it is a modifiable one".
Traits that we once thought were inevitable could be modifiable and what we do in life may have implications not only for our own health but also potentially the health of our children and even our grandchildren.
The authors concluded: "Low vitamin B12 status should be further investigated as a modifiable cause of brain atrophy and of likely subsequent cognitive impairment in the elderly".
