The Chief Executive Officer, Mercy Health Care Hospital, Abuja, Dr. Salisu Banya, has urged Nigerians to imbibe healthy habits to avoid the risk of non-communicable diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes.
Banya gave the advice in an interview with the press in Abuja.
The medical practitioner described non communicable diseases as major causes of sudden death globally.
He defined a non-communicable disease as “a chronic disease or a medical condition not caused by infectious agents but lasts for long period and progresses steadily but slowly.”
The medical expert, who also described non-communicable diseases as metabolic illnesses, emphasised that diet, regular exercise, moderate intake of alcohol, abstinence from drug abuse and tobacco products were ways of preventing such diseases.
According to him, a lot of people are at risk of non-communicable diseases because they lacked awareness as to the health implications of unhealthy practices that predispose them to such diseases.
He identified such unhealthy practises to include poor: eating habits, lack of exercise, and drug abuse and alcohol consumption among others.
Banya, however, said that regular awareness creation and education of the people would enable them to imbibe healthy habits.
“All the healthy foods that prevent our body from non-communicable diseases are at our disposal, yet those illnesses are prevalent in our society due to lack of knowledge of the nutritional values of those natural resources.
The major gap or reasons for the rate of metabolic illness like hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancer, liver and kidney is lack of education.
Most people do not know what it means to live a healthy lifestyle,” he said.
According to him, healthy lifestyle is not strenuous and does not require anything out of the ordinary to develop.
He advised people to cultivate the habit of eating healthy diet, stop cigarette smoking, and reduce alcohol to the barest minimum and drug abuse among others.
“All you need do is to improve on the things you do and be conscious of what you take with regard to food, avoid self medication, imbibing or cultivating the habit of regular exercise,” he said.
