Stay healthy, heed medic’s advice on NCDs
DAR ES SALAAM: IT is unfortunate that despite living in the era of digital world, where people spend time perusing the internet and social media for the right information, some are still clinging to myths, hearsays and pieces of advice from bush doctors on noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).
The reality is that NCDs, also known as chronic diseases, tend to be of long duration and are the result of a combination of genetic, physiological, environmental and behavioural factors.
Period! In a quick analysis, the main types of NCD are cardiovascular diseases (such as heart attacks and stroke), cancers, chronic respiratory diseases (such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma) and diabetes and none is contracted as a result of a curse or transmitted to one by a witch.
On this note, the government through Nutritionists as well as philanthropic organizations has been focusing on health issues, teaching a lot on healthy diets in order to protect the public from such ailments.
We should realize that millions of lives could be saved by healthy diets, exercise and the avoidance of tobacco and alcohol.
Equally, we should note that eating a variety of foods and consuming less salt, sugars and saturated and industrially-produced trans-fats, are essential for healthy diet.
These behaviours set the stage for later development of lifestyle diseases such as high blood pressure, overweight, respiratory diseases, high blood sugar and high cholesterol levels.
It is unfortunate that NCDs are now the leading cause of death in most regions of the world (Tanzania included), accounting for up to 70 per cent of all deaths worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
In 2012, for example, the diseases killed 38 million people, of whom 80 per cent were from developing countries, including those in Africa. About half of these people died prematurely before the age of 70.
A quick analysis locally will tell you that long considered diseases of the West and often associated with the urban and affluent in society; NCDs have crept silently into many corners in Africa right into the villages, remaining relatively unnoticed as governments and the international community focus on combating communicable diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, polio and HIV/AIDS.
We should note that Africa, home to 54 low and middle-income countries, will have the world’s largest increase in NCD deaths over the next decade-something within our reach to avoid.
As stakeholders join the government in fighting these lifestyle diseases, the public should be told the reality that the effects of these diseases are as devastating to the economy as they are to the people they afflict.
At the national level, they impede efforts to fight poverty, making it difficult to achieve global development goals such as the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number three, which aims to ensure healthy lives and to promote the well-being of all people.
