Adopt healthy lifestyles

Saturday, October 11, 2008 (The Mirror Pg 30)

By Rebecca Kwei
The President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana (PSGH), Dr Alex Dodoo, has called on Ghanaians to adopt healthy lifestyles in order to prevent non-communicable diseases which may lead to premature death.
He said statistics show that the number of lifestyle diseases including??? was increasing and there was the need to stem the tide.
Speaking at a roundtable discussion on lifestyle diseases in Ghana, Dr Dodoo said non-communicable diseases in Ghana constitute public health and developmental challenges requiring the same intellectual and financial commitments afforded to communicable and infectious diseases such as malaria and HIV AIDS.
The discussion was a collaboration among the PSGH, the Health Communications Institute (HCI) and Novo Nordisk.
Giving statistics, he said diabetes prevalence studies in southern Ghana recorded a steady increase from 0.2 per cent in a population of men in Ho in the 1960s through 2 to 3 per cent prevalence in urban areas in southern Ghana in 1990.
Additionally, in the late 1990s, a prevalence rate of 6.4 per cent for diabetes and 10.7 per cent for impaired glucose tolerance was recorded in a community in Accra.
At the Korle Bu Hospital, the percentage of medical admissions due to diabetes increased from 3.5 in the mid 1970s to 6.4 per cent in the mid 1980s.
In the 1970s, the World Health Organisation (WHO) sponsored Mamprobi Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) study recorded hypertension prevalence of 13 per cent in the community. A non-communicable disease survey conducted in 1998 recorded a national prevalence of 27.8 per cent for hypertension.
Childhood obesity has also increased 3.8 fold from 0.5 per cent in 1988 to 1.9 per cent in 1993/94.
The Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) demonstrate that prevalence of obesity or overweight among adult (non-pregnant) women across the country increased 2.5 fold in 10 years from 10 per cent in 1993 to 25.3 per cent in 2003.
According to Dr Dodoo, the DHS data showed that there were more obese women (25.3 per cent) than malnourished women (9 per cent).
He said increasing obesity rates in Ghana have been linked to urbanisation, modernisation, affluence and changing lifestyles.
He said what was worrying that people who had acquired non-communicable diseases were going about their normal duties without knowing they were at risk.
Dr Dodoo said it was very expensive to treat non-communicable diseases and called on people to live healthy by eating balanced diet, regular exercise, regular check-up and ensure low fat, salt and sugar intake.
He said the PSGH was serious about tackling the increasing rates of lifestyle diseases and the discussion with health journalists was one of steps it was embarking on.
The Chairperson of Public Health of the PSGH, Mrs Ellen Sam expressed concern about the way obesity and eating junk food was associated with beauty and wealth.
She appealed to fast food joints to come up with alternatives of cooking their foods to make it more healthy such as baking chips rather than frying.
Another concern was the increasing number of aphrodisiacs on the market which many people have taken to and are smoking adding that too much alcohol and smoking had a negative impact on one’s health.
Mrs Sam said it was about time Ghanaians took a second look at the various drinks they provided for their kids to take to school.
“Most of these so called fruit juices are just water, sugar and artificial flavour,” she cautioned.
The country representative of Novo Nordisk, Mr John Allotey, said the prevalence rate for diabetes in 1958 was 0.4 per cent and in 2002 was 6.4 per cent.
He also emphasised the need for people to be educated on healthy lifestyles since the rate at which non-communicable diseases were increasing was alarming.
The President of the HCI, Ms Eunice Menka called for more collaboration between journalists and health professionals in order to disseminate health issues accurately.