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A Professor of Applied Biochemistry at the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), Ondo State, Ganiyu Oboh has recommended lasting cure to the menace of diabetes.
He posited that at least four of the 10 leading causes of death-heart diseases, cancer, stroke and diabetes are directly related to what we eat. Oboh, who spoke at the 85th inaugural lecture at the weekend, titled: “Functional Foods: Paradigm for Health and Wellness,” said nutrition is an important factor that affects human health and quality of life.
He also identified protein malnutrition as a major public health problem in the developing world, leading to prevalence of killer diseases. The lecturer said the way out is a change in dietary habit advising that people should eat functional food to stay healthy and live long.According to him, individuals who want to stay healthy should eat more vegetables and fruits and avoid junk foods.
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He said there are strong evidences that there are global increases in the consumption of heavily processed foods. This, coupled with lifestyle changes, particularly cultural shifts away from fresh, wholesome homemade meals to take-outs, he said, has contributed to high rates of preventable, chronic diseases.
“Today, there are different problems related to diet and lifestyles. There are many modern systemic diseases in which dietary pattern plays significant role in the incidence and pathogenesis of such diseases. Proper nutrition and healthy lifestyles may represent good pre-requisites for the prevention/management of these diseases.”
Quoting the Greek physician, Hippocrates, who said, “Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food,” Oboh linked prevalent chronic and killer diseases to dietary pattern.
Defining functional foods, he said they are foods or food components that confer additional health benefits to the consumer beyond their conventional nutritive values.
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