Health professional and the lead convenor for the establishment of a dialysis center in the Upper East Region, Dr. Emmanuel Akatibo, is worried about the unrestrained consumption and use of products, both herbal and artificially synthesized.
Dr. Akatibo, speaking with A1 Radio’s Mark Smith on the Day Break Upper East Show recently, added that even naturally occurring products can have severe harm on the body if intake is not regulated.
His comments were made on the back of the sharp rise in end-stage renal failure cases in the Upper East Region and generally across the country.
“What we know is that people who are supposed to get kidney diseases are those who have had diabetes for a long time or hypertension. Now, you look at these young people, and you don’t find that in them, and yet they have kidney issues. Most of the patients that I even have now, all of them are below 40 years, and yet they are requiring dialysis.”
“For some of them, it’s the intake of herbal medicine. People are out there saying that if you take these capsules, you can do this and that. All those things you take give work to the kidneys. Some damage the kidneys directly. People tend to believe that once something is natural, it is better than what is not natural. That is not always the case. Whatever is natural, there are components of it that are not good for the body. So if we want to use what is natural, we have to be able to extract what is not good and leave what is good,” he explained.
Dr. Akatibo suggested a change in lifestyle to include more exercises and highly regulated intake of food and non-food products.
Source: A1Radioonline.com|101.1Mhz|Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Ghana