Doctor Asks Nigerians To Guard Against Non-Communicable Diseases

A medical doctor, Omolara Olagunju, has called on Nigerians to focus more on their daily habits to guard against Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs).

Olagunju, who is also a paediatrician, gave the advice in Abuja at the weekend, during the inauguration of her foundation tagged “Nuparadigm Health Foundation”.

She urged Nigerians to adopt healthier lifestyles, improved dietary habits, and preventive practices to reduce the burden of NCDs.

Olagunju described NCDs as the most killer diseases in the country.

According to her, the growing threat of NCDs such as hypertension, diabetes, cancers and other cardiovascular diseases requires everyone to have the right information on how to guard against them.

She said that she was motivated to create the foundation based on her interaction with people, saying that most Nigerians do not know much about essential health information.

“Our mission is simple; we want to go into the community to teach people.

“We want to let everybody know there is something called essential health information. This health information is what we all have right to.

“This essential health information is all about information you need to know to maintain your health.

“The essence of this foundation is to make sure that we publicise this health information as much as possible,” she said.

She said that the growing prevalence of NCDs is compounded by urbanisation, unhealthy lifestyles, and limited access to healthcare.

“It is critical to implement a multi-level preventive strategy to address this issue and prevent further economic and social consequences,” she said.

She said that the information bulletin accompanied with the launch of the foundation outlined the escalating threat posed by NCDs, and the need to target interventions.

Olagunju said that the bulletin also recommended actions for the Nigerian government and relevant stakeholders to take in order to reduce NCD-related mortality and improve public health.

The doctor said that only 29 per cent of hypertensive individuals were aware of their condition, with only three per cent achieving adequate blood pressure control.

“The prevalence of diabetes has also risen from 2.5 per cent in the 1990s to seven per cent in 2024, and this is largely due to urbanisation, sedentary lifestyles.

“Cardiovascular diseases, including strokes and heart attacks account for 38 per cent of premature NCD-related deaths in Nigeria. 26 per cent of women and 20 per cent of men are obese,” she said.

She harped on the need for Nigerians to win the battle.

She said that her foundation aimed to work hard, spend a lot of energy to explain to people on how to take care of their health.

The keynote speaker, Dr Iseko Iseko, a physician and interventional cardiologist, spoke on cardiovascular health and preventive health in Nigeria.

Iseko said that prevention was divided into primary, secondary, and tertiary.

“In the primary prevention, it is all about preventing things from happening.

“In secondary prevention, we are talking about any treatment of diseases that already happened and prevent complications.

“At this point in time, we are preventing complications from happening. We are preventing from getting worse.

“We are doing a lot of things at secondary prevention level, including re-education on how to manage these complications,” he said.

Iseko said that the tertiary prevention largely managed rehabilitation and re-integration to the community after an event.

He said that these levels of prevention were all extremely important, adding that most pre-pandemic health complications do not happen in front of the hospital.