By Hassan Zaggi
Medical experts under the umbrella of Society of Lifestyle Medicine of Nigeria (SOLONg), have insisted that lifestyle medicine is key to averting diabetes, hypertension, high cholestoral issues and many other chronic diseases.
The President of the SOLONg, Dr Ifeoma Monye, stated this at a virtual media briefing in Abuja, Wednesday, in preparation for the Society’s third conference which is scheduled to take place virtually on December 2-3.
The two-day conference which is aimed at raising awareness among the Nigerian population about the what lifestyle medicine is all about is with the theme: Addressing the Double Burden of Diseases in Africa: The Challenges and the Lifestyle Medicine Solutions.
Dr. Monye explained that lifestyle medicine is a new specialty in medicine, stressing that: “It is a specialty where we use therapeutic lifestyle interventions in the lives of people to prevent, treat and sometimes reverse the cause of chronic illnesses.
“Lifestyle medicine also deals with restorative sleep. We say, have, at least, 8 hours of restorative sleep. That is the World Health Organisation (WHO) standard.
“We also talk about knowing about how to manage stress properly. We talk about building loving relationships and avoid alcohol and other toxic or harmful substances or drug or addiction.”
Speaking further, Dr. Monye noted that: “We want lifestyle medicine to be the core of medicine practice. We want it to be the first point of call in medicine practice before medication.
“We are not against medication, but we are saying that a lot of these illness including diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol issues, certain cancers, all can be mitigated by the things I have talked about including nutrition, physical activity, sleep, stress management, social connectedness and avoiding toxic substances.
“If you actually have behaviour change in all of these, it can actually solve the problem, prevent, treat and sometimes reverse the illness.”
While saying that SOLONg wants Nigerians to live healthier, happier and longer, she disclosed that the Society is currently collaborating with the Colleges of Medicine in some universities in the country and that lifestyle medicine is about to be recognized as a formal sub- specialty in mainstream postgraduate training in Nigeria. She emphasized that SOLONg has trained many medical experts in lifestyle medicine in Nigeria over the past few years. “We know that health professionals must be trained and retrained in this specialty for it to make any impact,” she stressed.
Speaking, the Vice President of SOLONg, Dr Charles Cudjoe, reiterated that lifestyle medicine is new frontier in Nigeria.
He noted that physicians have come to the agreement that medicine is not all about curing diseases, prevention is the better way to go.
“It is good to know that most Nigerians have come to accept that lifestyle medicine is probably, the best way to initially treat any condition,” Dr. Cudjoe, said.
