Story: Mary Ankrah
THE President Emeritus of Family Health International (FHI) 360, Dr Peter Lamptey, has cautioned against the high intake of salt, lack of exercise and excessive alcohol and tobacco intake and overweight, saying these were the major causes of heart diseases in the country.
Aside those causes, he said exposure to indoor smoke from solid fuels was also a major cause of heart problems.
The President Emeritus of FHI 360, a non-governmental organisation, who gave the warning, explained that changes in the body as a result of those risk factors also caused chronic ill health and disabilities sometimes leading to death.
He observed that unhealthy diet such as those high in animal fat and eating too much salt were health behaviours that put people at risk and in the case of pregnant women, put their babies at risk.
Dr Lamptey made this known at the launch of the cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention awareness campaign last Saturday in Accra.
The campaign dubbed: “From your heart to theirs” is aimed at increasing awareness of the impact of lifestyle choices to prevent CVD and increase positive behaviour that would lower risk factors, including healthy eating and increase physical activities.
The CVD prevention campaign is targeted specifically to female heads of households to adopt healthy cooking habit and serve foods with less oil and salt to prevent heart diseases among their families.
A branded mobile van would visit designated communities where cooking demonstration and CVD risk factor screening would be conducted.
Speaking on the topic: “The growing burden of chronic diseases in Ghana and other developing countries,” Dr Lamptey stated that six out of 10 deaths among human beings worldwide, were the result of chronic diseases, including hypertension, stroke and heart diseases.
He said heart diseases accounted for 60 per cent of the global burden of chronic diseases and most of these deaths occurred in developing countries.
He said chronic diseases killed people at an early age in developing countries such as Ghana than in Europe or the United States. He added that those diseases were on decline in industrialised countries but rising rapidly in developing countries.
He observed that in Ghana and most developing countries, local information on heart disease was generally inadequate even though some important research had been conducted.
He cited that inadequate health infrastructure and healthcare delivery, poor access to affordable diagnostics resources, medicines and technologies and poverty as some of the key challenges to heart disease control in Ghana.
According to Dr Lamptey, one out of three of the over 10,000 people who were screened at the out patients departments of the Police and Atua hospitals, between August 2011 and March 2012, were hypertensive and most people with high blood pressure were unaware they had it.
He said over half of the people screened were overweight, a common contributory cause to many chronic diseases, indicating that the findings were consistent with results of programmes in other parts of the country and data from the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The president acknowledged that heart diseases had a devastating health, social and economic impact on society because of the cost and long term consequences and therefore advised Ghanaians to maintain a normal weight, stop smoking, reduce intake of salt, eat less fatty foods, eat more fruits and vegetables and exercise regularly to stay healthy.
He also advised people to go for regular medical examinations to check their blood pressure, cholesterol and sugar level.
He urged the public and private healthcare centres to strengthen health services for prevention, treatment and control of chronic diseases and also mentioned that the government should increase resources to improve services of chronic diseases as well as change policies and regulations to advance healthier lifestyles in the country.
Launching the CVD campaign, Public Health Specialist at the Policy Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Unit of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Alex Korshie Nazzar, expressed the hope that the campaign would effect healthy lifestyle in feeding and living habits among Ghanaians.
The event was used to conduct free health screening for those in attendance and a popular actress, Madam Akorfa Edzeani-Asiedu, performed a cooking demonstration and taste testing exercise on how to use less oil and salt but more vegetables to cook healthy meal.
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