'Lifestyle diseases killing Ghanaians'

Before, lifestyle diseases such as heart disorders, cancer, Alzheimer’s diseases, asthma, chronic liver disease, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), diabetes, stroke and osteoporosis, were known to be diseases associated with developed countries.

Currently, developing countries like Ghana, over the past decades, is experiencing its fair share of non-communicable diseases, translating into high deaths, especially among those below 50 years, according to the Africa Media and Malaria Research Network (AMMREN) Plus.

According to AMMREN plus, the high rate of lifestyle diseases affecting and killing Ghanaians are a result of eating unhealthy foods, having a sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy habits like smoking and drinking alcohol.

A Clinical Pharmacist at the Ghana Police Hospital, Mrs. Ellen Sam, addressing participants at an AMMREN Plus training workshop on health under the topic: “lifestyle diseases: an emerging epidemic” in Accra on Tuesday, defined lifestyle diseases as those that arise as a result of the way we lead our lives on a daily basis.

She further described lifestyle diseases as diseases of influence, since they affect individuals, irrespective of their age.

Even though lifestyle diseases are not contagious, they have a growing burden on socio-economic development, stressing: “A particular concern is the relative early age of lifestyle diseases in developing countries,” she said.

According to statics, a lifestyle disease like hypertension was 8 percent prevalent in Ghana in 1974, but by 2003, the prevalence rate had shot to 28 percent, and still counting.

She added that diseases like diabetes had become a growing health crisis, a waiting time bomb, and a silent killer, affecting people at higher pedestals.

Mrs. Ellen Sam, therefore, called for immediate prevention action such as “lifestyle disease prevention demands lifestyle changes."

She also called for positive prevention actions like eating healthy diets, avoiding tobacco use, maintaining healthy weight, practicing daily physical activity and limit to television watch.