by Each November 14 is World Diabetes Day and this year’s theme is “Access to Diabetes Care.”
If you are diabetic, Dr. Chidi Ngwaba has a message for you and in his words, “You need a healthy plant-based diet. Every time you go to eat and you are diabetic, when you put down your fork you should get up and go for a walk.
He went on to say: “I have boldly told them that anyone with type 2 diabetes does not have to live with it, it is completely reversible. Change your lifestyle and get rid of it.”
In fact, diabetes is a lifestyle disease. A lifestyle disease is a medical condition or disorder associated with the way a person lives, eats, exercises, and thinks.
With some lifestyle changes and proper nutrition, diabetes can be avoided and reversed.
We looked at ways in which nutrition plays a crucial role in our health. Let’s proceed.
- Helps maintain a healthy weight
The most obvious health benefit of optimal nutrition is that it is much easier to achieve and maintain a healthy weight. Avoiding being overweight or obese puts you on a healthy trajectory and reduces your risk of developing serious or life-threatening diseases and conditions.
- Improves healing and recovery from injuries or illnesses.
Many of the same nutrients that act as immunity boosters also come into play for wound healing. But that is not all. When your body receives proper nutrients, it is better equipped to heal and recover more quickly from situations such as surgical procedures, illnesses, and injuries.
- Helps the digestive system to function correctly.
- Supports healthy muscles and strong bones.
- Increases mood and energy levels.
- Longevity: According to the World Health Organization, better nutrition is related to better health at all ages, a lower risk of disease and longevity.
Our dear country is not left out of this: there is the Nutrition Society of Nigeria, a non-governmental professional association founded in 1963 at the University of Ibadan.
The NSN is the single and largest gathering of nutrition stakeholders in Nigeria. Annually, the organization invites nutritionists, dieticians, food scientists and related professionals to its Annual General Meeting.
The aims and objectives are:
- Promote and encourage the study and practice of nutrition in its broadest sense.
- Provide a common forum for nutritionists and public health professionals to liaise and cooperate with universities and research institutes, government departments, national commissions, corporate organizations and other similar bodies for the exchange of professional and other information relevant to promotion of nutrition and national policies. development.
- Serve as a professional body in nutritional sciences, advising, advocating and influencing government on matters relating to food and nutrition policy.
- Publish magazines, newsletters and other nutrition publications and information.
- Cooperate and liaise with national and international organizations in the advancement of nutritional sciences.
- Represent the interests of partners in professional matters. Generate and retain funds to promote the aforementioned purposes and objectives of the company.
- Develop all other functions that are lawful and conducive to achieving the above objectives.
What should good nutrition look like?
Let’s make the Mediterranean diet our model. It is based on the traditional foods of the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea, including France, Spain, Greece and Italy.
Research has shown that people who live in these regions tend to be healthier and have a lower risk of many chronic diseases, compared to people who eat a standard American diet.
Studies have linked the Mediterranean diet to lower risk factors for heart disease, such as high cholesterol and high blood pressure.
Research has indicated that the Mediterranean diet can promote weight loss, help prevent heart attacks, strokes, type 2 diabetes, and reduce the risk of premature death.
Today, the Mediterranean diet is one of the healthy eating plans recommended by American nutrition experts. It is also recognized by the World Health Organization as a healthy eating pattern.
The basis of the Mediterranean diet is plant foods. It is high in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds, olive oil, and seasonings with herbs and spices. Moderate amounts of dairy, poultry and eggs are part of the Mediterranean diet, as are seafood. On the contrary, red meat is only eaten occasionally.
The diet encourages people to consume fewer processed foods, added sugars, refined grains and also limit alcohol consumption.
Unsaturated fats are a strong point of the Mediterranean diet and are consumed in place of saturated and trans fats, which play a role in heart disease.
Olive oil and nuts are the main sources of fat in the Mediterranean diet. They provide unsaturated fats. When unsaturated fat comes from plant sources, it appears to reduce levels of total cholesterol and low-density lipoproteins, also called LDL or “bad” cholesterol.
Fish is a key part of the Mediterranean diet. Some healthy options are mackerel, herring and salmon.
They are known as fatty fish. And the fats they contain are omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3s are unsaturated fats that can reduce the action of the immune system in the body, known as inflammation.
They can also help reduce blood fats called triglycerides and affect blood clotting.
Omega 3s may also reduce the risk of stroke and heart failure.
A 2019 review found that the Mediterranean diet can help obese people reduce the quantity and improve the nutritional quality of their food intake, with an overall effect of possibly losing body weight.
In 2014, two meta-analyses found that the Mediterranean diet was associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, similar to findings in a 2017 review.
The American Diabetes Association and a 2019 review indicated that the Mediterranean diet is a healthy dietary pattern that may reduce the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. A 2023 review found evidence of reduced mortality and risk of cardiovascular disease in women following a Mediterranean-type diet.
Good nutrition is the greatest weapon at our disposal to combat and prevent diseases. That’s what we’re going to use in this war.
On this journey, be free to create new recipes, eat more foods that come from the earth, and say no to processed foods.
Let me leave you with some quotes:
“Don’t dig your grave with your own knife and fork.” – English proverb
“Those who think they don’t have time for healthy eating will sooner or later have to find time for illness.” -Edward Stanley
“Don’t eat anything that your great-grandmother didn’t recognize as food. There are a lot of food-like items in the supermarket that your ancestors wouldn’t recognize as food. Stay away from these.” –Michael Pollan
“Man is what he eats” – Lucretius
“Until you have proper nutrition, nothing will change.” – Anonymous
“Every time you eat or drink, you are feeding a disease or fighting it.” –Heather Morgan
“The human body heals itself and nutrition provides the resources to accomplish the task.” -Roger Williams.
