The 80/20 Rule Applied to Diseases

The 80/20 rule is also known as the Pareto principle. Vilfredo Pareto (1848 – 1923) is an Italian engineer, sociologist, economist, political scientist,  and philosopher.  Vilfredo initially called it Pareto distribution. The Pareto distribution evolved into many names: Pareto Law, the Law of the Vital Few, the Principle of Factor Sparsity, Principle of Least Effort, and the Principle of Imbalance.

The Pareto principle states that only 20% of the cause can explain 80% of the results for many events.  20% of the input is responsible for 80% of the output. 20% of your effort makes 80% of your outcome.

An example will be 20%, or 3% of the population, has 80% or more of the wealth in a country. The parents in a family generate the bulk of the income. People wear only a fraction of their clothes most of the time. 80% of crimes are committed by only 20% of the criminals.

The distribution does not necessarily have to be 80/20 all the time. It can be 90/10 or 95/5.  It does not even have to add up to 100. The concept is that a minority is responsible for the majority of the results.

The 80/20 Principle in Diseases

The  Top ten causes of death in the U.S. for 2016-2017 per the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The numbers at the right end of the bar graph represent deaths per 100,000 living people. That means for the year 2017, 165.5 people died of heart disease per 100,000 living people.

The 10 leading causes accounted for 74.0% of all deaths, according to the CDC in 2017.

Diabetes is a significant risk factor for heart disease and cancer. The article, If You Know any Male who is  55 and older, read this! Describes how a death certificate is completed and details the underlying diseases that led to the immediate cause of death. Usually, the underlying conditions are diabetes and obesity.

8 – 9 out of the top 10 causes of deaths in the list above are related to metabolic syndrome (MetS). Heart disease, strokes,  acute and chronic respiratory sicknesses like pneumonia and COPD, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and kidney disease (mostly diabetes and hypertension-related). Not all cancers are related to metabolic syndrome, but being obese and diabetic makes anyone cancer-prone. Diabetes, heart and lung diseases make it difficult to fight any infection, especially pneumonia.  

There is also an association between depression that leads to suicide and MetS. Therefore among the top ten, only unintentional injuries do not have an association with MetS.

The graph also shows the parallel data between 2016 and 2017. This trend goes back several years, and there is no indication that it will change soon.

In summary, the elements of Mets, namely hypertension, obesity, high blood sugar, low HDL, and high triglycerides, work in combination to affect and damage different organ systems. The various conditions then make it harder for the body to recover from other illnesses, leading to death.

The next article will describe how the 80/20 rule can be used for health.

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References

• SOURCE: NCHS, National Vital Statistics System, Mortality.

National Center for Health Statistics

Image Credits

• Top Ten causes of mortality in 2016-2017: CDC

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