Friday, 29th March 2024
To guardian.ng
Search

Experts advocate regular exercise to prevent diabetes

By Paul Adunwoke
19 August 2015   |   8:40 pm
Health experts have reiterated the need for regular exercise to reduce the chances of having diabetes mellitus among Nigerians.

exercise1Health experts have reiterated the need for regular exercise to reduce the chances of having diabetes mellitus among Nigerians.

They recommended that Nigerians should shun the habit of moving from their air-condition offices to air-condition cars and to air-condition houses. In place rather imbibe the habit of walking far distance while going to offices and their businesses to avoid diabetes mellitus.

Speaking, at Second Podiatry and Diabetes Foot Care Workshop, in Lekki, Lagos, organised by Rainbow Specialist Medical Centre Lekki, in collaboration with Podiatry Institute Decatur, Georgia, USA and sponsored by World Diabetes Foundation Initiative, Dr. Olufemi Fasanmade, from Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), said in the past, there was no diabetes cases in Nigeria, because people go to farm to cultivate yam, cassava, potatoes among others and get healthier. But today, there are a lot of diabetes cases because people are formed of sitting down in their air condition offices, cars, and houses among others.

Fasanmade said: “This Podiatry workshop is very important because it covers an aspect of diabetes care that requires more information and trainings. It is important because we lose many people to diabetes, infections or decay of the leg, which is known as diabetic foot ulcer.

“Many people develop this because of wound on the leg, which turns to spread to the entire leg sometimes and the patient dies. Some people have wrong ideas on it thinking that it is witchcraft or due to spell. So, they continue to go from one place to another until they are consumed by the wound and died on it,” he said.

Continuing, he said: “Diabetes is caused by change in lifestyle. The Africa traditional lifestyle, which includes physical activities; walking far distance, going to the farms, prevent a lot of diseases such as diabetes and hypertension.

“But when we adopt urban lifestyle of sitting down in one place and eating excessively taking a lot of alcohol, smoking, soft drinks all these lead to increase in non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and hypertension.

“So you find out that people have diabetes many more in urban centres than rural areas and when we want to avoid diabetes, it means we should go back to our routes meaning long distance walk on daily basis.

“People should stop taking cars from office to home to schools everywhere we go. Our foots are meant to walk and if you walk adequate distance everyday we can keep our weights, blood pressure, and blood sugar down and we prevent both diabetes and hypertension,” he said.

Endocrinologist, and Medical Director and Consultant, Rainbow Specialist Medical Centre Dr. Afokoghene Rita Isiavwe, said the training programme was to empower healthcare workers, doctor, nurses and anybody who manages people with diabetes to be able to look after the foot of their patients better.

She added that diabetes mellitus in the food is the major cause of traumatic lower leg amputation and anybody who has a wound from diabetes, ulcer or leg amputation it has financial, emotional, and physiological effect on the patient. It affects the individual in all aspect of life.

0 Comments