Each November 14 is World Diabetes Day and this year’s theme is ‘Access to Diabetes Care’.
If you have diabetes, Dr. Chidi Ngwaba has a message for you: “You need a healthy plant-based diet. Every time you go to eat and you have diabetes, as you put down your fork, get up and take a walk.
He went on to say, “I have boldly told you that everyone with type 2 diabetes does not have to live with it; it is completely reversible. Change your lifestyle and get rid of it.”
Diabetes is indeed a lifestyle disease. A lifestyle disease is a medical condition or condition related to the way a person lives, eats, exercises and thinks.
With some lifestyle changes and proper nutrition, diabetes can be prevented and reversed.
We stopped at ways in which nutrition plays a crucial role in our health. Let’s continue.
- 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 lowers your risk of developing serious or life-threatening diseases and conditions.
- Improves healing and recovery from injury or illness
Many of the same nutrients that act as immunity boosters also play a role in wound healing. But that is not everything. When your body is properly nourished with nutrients, it is better equipped to heal and recover faster from things like surgery, illness and injury.
- Helps the digestive system function properly
- Supports healthy muscles and strong bones
- Boosts mood and energy levels
- Longevity: According to the World Health Organization, better nutrition is linked to better health at all ages, lower risk of disease and longevity.
Not left out in this is the Nutrition Society of Nigeria, a professional, non-governmental society founded in 1963 at the University of Ibadan.
The NSN is the only and largest gathering of nutrition stakeholders in Nigeria. Every year, the organization invites nutritionists, dietitians, food scientists and related professionals to its annual general meeting.
The aims and objectives are:
- To promote and advance the study and practice of nutrition in its broadest sense.
- To provide a common forum for nutritionists and public health professionals to liaise and collaborate with universities and research institutes, government departments, national commissions, business organizations and other similar bodies for the exchange of professional and other relevant information in the promotion of nutrition and national development.
- As a professional organization in the field of nutritional sciences, to advise, advocate and influence the government in the field of food and nutrition policy.
- Publishing magazines, newsletters and other publications and information about nutrition.
- Collaborate and collaborate with national and international organizations to promote nutritional sciences.
- Representing the interests of the members professionally. To generate and retain funds to further the above-mentioned goals and objectives of the society.
- To perform all such other functions as are lawful and conducive to the achievement of the above objectives.
What should good nutrition look like?
Let’s make the Mediterranean diet our blueprint. It is based on the traditional dishes of countries around the Mediterranean, 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 conditions, 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 shown that the Mediterranean diet can promote weight loss, help prevent heart attacks, strokes and type 2 diabetes and reduce the risk of premature death.
Today, the Mediterranean diet is one of the healthy eating plans that American nutritionists recommend. It is also recognized by the World Health Organization as a healthy diet.
The basis of the Mediterranean diet is plant-based food. It contains plenty of 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 is seafood. Red meat, on the other hand, is only eaten occasionally.
The diet encourages people to consume fewer processed foods, added sugars and refined grains and also to limit alcohol consumption
Unsaturated fats are a strong part of the Mediterranean diet and are eaten in place of saturated fats 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 fat. When unsaturated fat comes from plant sources, it appears to lower levels of total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein, also known as LDL or “bad” cholesterol.
Fish is an important part of the Mediterranean diet. Some healthy choices include mackerel, herring and salmon.
These are known as oily fish. And the fats they contain are omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3 fatty acids are unsaturated fats that can reduce the functioning of the body’s immune system, also known as inflammation.
They can also help reduce blood fats called triglycerides and affect blood clotting.
Omega-3 fatty acids may also lower the risk of stroke and heart failure.
A 2019 review found that the Mediterranean diet can help people with obesity reduce the amount of food consumed and improve the nutritional quality of food intake, with the overall effect possibly being weight loss.
In 2014, two meta-analyses found that the Mediterranean diet was associated with a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, findings that were similar to those of a 2017 review.
The American Diabetes Association and a 2019 review indicated that the Mediterranean diet is a healthy dietary pattern that can reduce the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. A 2023 review found evidence of a reduction in mortality and cardiovascular disease risk in women who followed a Mediterranean diet.
Good nutrition is the greatest weapon we have to fight and prevent disease. That’s what we’re going to use in this warfare.
On this journey, be free to create new recipes, eat more food that comes from the earth, and say no to processed foods.
I want to leave 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 wouldn’t recognize as food. There are many food-like items in the supermarket that your ancestors would not recognize as food. Stay away from here.” – Michael Pollan
“Man is what he eats” – Lucretius
“As long as you don’t eat right, nothing will change.” – Anonymously
“Every time you eat or drink, you are feeding or fighting disease.” – Heather Morgan
“The human body heals itself, and nutrition provides the means to accomplish the task.” -Roger Williams.