Clinical characteristics and stages of sub-health: progression from "five-disease syndrome" to "potential clinical" state.

5. Clinical Characteristics of Sub-health: The manifestations of sub-health vary significantly across different regions and environments. The "Five Diseases Syndrome"-obesity, hypertension and hyperlipidemia, coronary heart disease, diabetes, and stroke-is a group of modern "civilization diseases" that increase with age. Their sub-health manifestations include a tendency towards "three highs and one low": high blood lipids, high blood viscosity, high blood sugar, and low immunity. The "six highs and one low"-high workload (psychological and physical), hypertension, hyperlipidemia, high blood sugar, high blood viscosity, high weight, and low immune function-is more common among relatively affluent urban residents. It is foreseeable that if left unchecked, the vast majority of these individuals will soon develop the "Five Diseases Syndrome." In rural areas or among relatively impoverished populations, sub-health is more prevalent, characterized by chronic strain, muscle and joint diseases and pain, malnutrition, and chronic infections. Staff from the Health Industry Market Development Committee of the China Marketing Association explained that although sub-health is a critical point, most people lack sufficient understanding of it, and its incubation period is very long, generally 8 to 10 years. Therefore, sub-health is also an early sign of many diseases, such as hepatitis, cancer, and high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar, and low blood sugar. It can be said that the defense line between sub-health and unhealthy is very weak. Many people who are already in a sub-healthy state "look good" and think they are healthy, but this is not the case. Faced with the same work and the same pressure, healthy people can cope with it more easily than unhealthy people. (III) The Development and Pathological State of Sub-health "Pathological state" refers to the state in which the human body is already ill. However, all diseases have a "latent clinical" state before they become ill, which is also the sub-health stage. In detail, sub-health is a broad concept that includes several interconnected stages. Among them, the one closely adjacent to health can be called "mild psychosomatic disorder," which is often characterized by fatigue, insomnia, poor appetite, and emotional instability. However, these disorders are easy to recover from, and once recovered, there is no difference between them and healthy people. It affects approximately 25% to 28% of the population. If this imbalance persists, it can progress to a "latent clinical" state, at which point it exhibits a high risk of developing certain diseases, with a high probability of progressing to a specific condition. More than one-third of the population is in this state, with a sharp increase in the proportion among those over 40 years old. Their symptoms are complex, ranging from chronic fatigue to persistent psychosomatic disorders, including the aforementioned symptoms lasting for more than two months, often accompanied by chronic sore throat, recurrent colds, and lack of energy. Some experts have summarized these complex symptoms into three types of decline: decreased vitality, decreased responsiveness, and decreased adaptability. Clinical testing shows that this group in urban areas tends to exhibit a pattern of "three highs and one low," namely, near-borderline high blood lipids, high blood sugar, high blood viscosity, and low immune function. At least 10% of people fall between "potentially clinical" and disease, a state known as "pre-clinical." This means they already have a lesion, but the symptoms are not yet obvious, have not attracted enough attention, or have not sought diagnosis, or even if a doctor has examined them, the lesion has not yet been detected. Strictly speaking, this last category is no longer considered sub-healthy, but rather an unhealthy state with a disease, awaiting a definitive diagnosis. Therefore, even excluding this group, many studies suggest that sub-healthy individuals account for about 60% of the population. Domestic and international research indicates that only about 15% of the population in modern society meets health standards. Interestingly, about 15% of the population has been diagnosed with a disease and is in an unhealthy state. If we consider health and disease as the two ends of the life process, then it's like an olive with two pointed ends, the large bulge in the middle representing the transitional state between health and disease-sub-health.