Lagos,18 November, 2024 – When 52-year-ancient Adeola Akinyemi, a trader residing in Lagos, acquired her Form 2 diabetes diagnosis ten years ago, her world shifted. The news came as a shock, but it state her on a lope that would change her dietary and sedentary lifestyle.
“I bear in ideas feeling constantly tired, always thirsty, and frequent the bathroom at evening”, says Adeola. “I was dropping a few pounds rapidly despite eating properly. It wasn’t unless I went for a routine test-up that I came across my blood sugar stages were dangerously excessive.”
Her lope with the condition has been challenging, but she is relentless and has adapted to a unusual lifestyle that she said is helping her retain healthy.
Adeola’s approach to managing diabetes is certainly one of balanced dedication and consistency. She emphasises that her lope to acceptance and retain watch over began with data and awareness.
After her diagnosis, Adeola sought guidance from healthcare professionals, dietitians, and diabetes enhance teams. This community of enhance became crucial in helping her understand what it meant to are living with diabetes and the way to maintain her blood sugar stages in test.
Adeola has since made significant lifestyle changes to manage her diabetes. She follows a strict weight reduction plan, workout routines regularly, uses her medication and displays her blood sugar stages regularly. “It’s now not easy, but necessary,” she says. “I want to be there for my early life and are living a healthy life.”
Diabetes awareness and a healthy lifestyle
Although Adeola’s fable is now not unfamiliar, many are unaware of their status. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), globally, in 2021, 537 million americans, or about 10.5% of the arena’s population, had diabetes, many of whom are unaware of their condition and its complications.
Diabetes (excessive blood sugar) is a continual health condition that affects how the physique converts food into energy. Diabetes prevalence has been rising more rapidly in center and low-revenue countries, including Nigeria. The disease is a major health jabber, with secondary complications including blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks, stroke and lower limb amputation.
Nigeria has the ideal incidence of diabetes in sub-Saharan Africa. The WHO estimates that the prevalence of diabetes in Nigeria is 4.3%. The excessive prevalence is primarily attributed to the lifestyle changes caused by urbanisation and its ends up in industries producing unhealthy diets, including sugar-sweetened drinks, lack of train, tobacco train, and harmful train of alcohol.
A Call to Action: Knowing Your Status Can Save Lives
With the 2024 World Diabetes Day commemorated, Dr Walter Kazadi Mulombo, WHO Nigeria Country Representative, emphasises the importance of diabetes education/awareness, early detection, and a healthy lifestyle.
Dr Mulombo said, “This year’s theme, “Breaking Barriers, Bridging Gaps, “underpins our dedication to cutting back the danger of diabetes and guaranteeing that all americans diagnosed with diabetes have access to equitable, comprehensive, affordable, and quality treatment and care.
“Knowing one’s diabetes status can certainly be life-saving. “On World Diabetes Day today, I encourage individuals, communities, governments, health staff, policymakers and civil society organisations to be part of hands and act now. For individuals, prioritise a healthy lifestyle, and if you’re already living with diabetes, have regular medical test-ups.
Communities can play their characteristic by creating supportive environments that promote healthy living, decrease stigma, and provide access to affordable diabetes care and education. For governments, we totally enhance your efforts to place into effect insurance policies that enhance access to essential medicines, toughen primary healthcare systems, and foreground investment in diabetes prevention and care”.
Taking deliberate steps
The WHO has been supporting the Nigerian govt in its efforts to combat the disease.
With the enhance of WHO, the Federal Ministry of Health has developed and launched a Multisectoral Action Plan to decrease the morbidity and mortality from noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). This plan involves value-efficient insurance policies and social interventions to steer behaviours and lifestyle changes.
Currently, the WHO supported Nigeria’s Governors Discussion board in conducting Challenge 10 Million, tagged Know Your Numbers, Withhold an eye on Your Quantity, to screen 10 million americans for hypertension and diabetes. The campaign served as an alternative to raise awareness about NCDs as a major public health challenge requiring urgent intervention.
For Adeola and tens of millions fancy her, World Diabetes Day is a reminder that whereas diabetes may be a part of her life, it doesn’t explain her. And with early detection and proactive management, it can be managed.
Her advice to others is clear: everybody may detached test their health status and take retain watch over of their health. Diabetes is now not a death sentence. It’s an alternative to rethink our health and lifestyle,”
