By Ibrahim Mohammed Saani
Tema, July 21, GNA – Dr Zuleila Fuseini, a Physician Specialist at the International Maritime Hospital (IMaH) in Tema, has said sedentary lifestyles due to urbanisation are a major contributor to non-communicable disease cases.
According to her, diseases like mental health issues, stroke, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and chronic lung infections were attributed to lifestyles.
Dr Fuseini said this at the weekly “Your Health! Our Collective Responsibility! A Ghana News Agency Tema Regional Office initiative aimed at promoting health-related communication and providing a platform for health information dissemination to influence personal health choices through improved health literacy
She said employment requiring physical labour kept workers on the move all day long and physical activity could protect people from many of the health concerns linked with a sedentary lifestyle.
She said although jobs in cities with little physical activity were safer, those workers faced health risks from sitting at a desk all day, driving home from work, and hiring housekeepers to help with meal preparation, all of which contributed to the development of cardiovascular disease.
In addition to the luxuries of excessive leisure, she claimed that urban settlers also consumed processed meats, fast food, fries, salty snacks, and sugary beverages, putting their health at risk of contracting a variety of non-communicable diseases.
The doctor claimed that when comparing urban and rural lifestyles, villagers were healthier and had longer life spans.
“People in rural areas are always engaged in either farming or other occupations that keep them busy. They cultivate vegetables and carbohydrates, which are essentially what the body requires to be healthy, therefore they consume a well-balanced diet.
It also lengthens lifespan.
The physician specialist suggested that to keep a healthy body, physical activities like exercise should be matched with a sensible amount of food and a healthy diet.
Dr Fuseini stressed that diabetes was a chronic, metabolic disease characterized by elevated levels of blood glucose (or blood sugar), which led over time to serious damage to the heart, blood vessels, eyes, kidneys, and nerves.
She said the most common was type two diabetes, usually in adults, which occurred when the body was resistant to insulin or did not make enough insulin.
She stressed that type one diabetes, once known as juvenile diabetes or insulin-dependent diabetes, is a chronic condition in which the pancreas produced little or no insulin by itself.
“For people living with diabetes, access to affordable treatment, including insulin, is critical to their survival. There is a globally agreed target to halt the rise in diabetes and obesity by 2025,” she said.
She mentioned that preventive modalities included balanced diets, regular exercise, cutting down on alcohol intake, cessation of smoking, and keeping weight, saying the ideal Body Max Index (BMI) should be between 18 and 25, among others.
Dr Fuseini also expressed worry that although type one was common among children and type two was prevalent among adults currently, type two was being highly recorded among children.
GNA