‘Hidden epidemic’ of neurological deaths in the major Western nations in the 21st Century
Exploring multiple- interactive environmental causes
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1921/swssr.v25i1.2296Keywords:
neurological mortality, environmental factors in mental health, diagnosis performance, Gompertzian hypothesiAbstract
In the first international comparative study of neurological mortality, which found that between 1989 and 1997, and based on the latest WHO available data, twelve of the twenty-one Western countries had substantial increases in neurological deaths (Pritchard et al., 2004) and by 2021 every-one of the twenty-one Western nations had significant rises in neurological deaths (Pritchard et al., 2013, 2017). In this new study presented here, we use WHO data (WHO, 2020) and the ONS (ONS, 2022) data for England and Wales up to 2020. Previously, increases have been assumed largely due to demography and improved accurate diagnostics (the Gompertzian hypothesis). Our results challenge the idea that the increases are mainly due to demography. We explore the multi-interactive environmental factors that have probably contributed to the rising neurological morbidity, ranging from petrochemicals, organophosphates, endocrine-disruptive chemicals, food additives, plastics, heavy metals in water and human breast milk.
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