Northerners weigh more and exercise less than their southern cousins, and new research suggests the growing gap between the regions could be setting up the Arctic for higher rates of chronic disease from strokes to diabetes.
"There are potentially higher chronic disease risk factors in northern Canadian compared with southern Canadian populations," says Kathleen Deering, one of the authors of the paper in the most recent Canadian Journal of Public Health.
"The higher risk factors would point to the potential for higher chronic disease prevalence in the future."
Northern Canada has long had higher rates of conditions such as respiratory disease that are blamed on factors including cramped, poorly ventilated houses. Deering's paper suggests northern lifestyles may be about to take a higher toll as well.
She and three other researchers compared how northerners and southerners exercise, smoke and drink and they also looked at their incidence of conditions such as arthritis, asthma and heart disease. As well, they compared the populations over time, using surveys conducted in 2000 and 2005.
Strenuous leisure activities have long been more common in the south. But in the past northerners got more overall exercise because they included more physical work in their daily lives.
Those days are gone. Southern Canadians are now outpacing their fellow citizens north of 60 in all kinds of exercise.
From 2000 to 2005, the proportion of northerners considered at least moderately active increased by seven per cent. In the south, the increase was roughly 28 per cent.
"In the second (survey), northern Canadians were less physically active in both measures than southern Canadians," says Deering.
Southerners are also consuming less booze and tobacco.
Smoking dropped by 13 per cent in the North, but by 20 per cent in the South. The percentage of regular drinkers grew more than nine per cent in the North, outpacing the southern growth of less than six per cent.
The percentage of obese or overweight northerners increased 10 per cent, as compared with only seven per cent of southerners.
Deering's research didn't examine the causes behind those trends. But she says they may already be eroding public health in the North.
"For northern Canadian respondents, the prevalence of having any chronic disease increased more than in southern Canadian respondents."
All chronic disease increased more than eight per cent in the North, while the figure was less than seven per cent in the South.
Still, Deering says the fact that the incidence of most such conditions remains fairly close between the two regions means there's time to bring the North in line with healthier trends in the South.
"It signals a need for monitoring of chronic disease in northern Canadian populations before the prevalence gets higher," she says. "This is an important time to focus efforts on chronic disease prevention.
"It's easier to prevent diseases than it is to treat them."
