One thing medicine has taught me is that disease doesn't always look the way we expect it to. Some of the patients I diagnose with hypertension, diabetes, or dyslipidemia are physically active farmers. They walk long distances every day, work tirelessly in the fields, and often consume mostly home-cooked meals made from local foods and grains.
It challenges many of the assumptions we commonly make about non-communicable diseases. We often emphasize physical activity and lifestyle modification in prevention, and these are undoubtedly important. But experiences like these make me wonder if our understanding of non-communicable diseases is sometimes more complex than the conversations we have around them.
Medicine constantly reminds me that health and disease rarely fit neatly into simple explanations.
Have others working in healthcare or public health noticed similar patterns in their own communities?