ABUJA – A Nutritionist, Mr Philip Amiengheme, on Thursday in Abuja urged the Federal Government to train more medical doctors on nutritional medicine to enable them provide dietary advice to the public.
Amiengheme, who is the President of Advocacy for the Prevention of Non-Communicable Diseases Initiative (APNDI), a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
He said that most doctors only had training in pharmaceutical medicine which enabled them to treat symptoms of ailments.
“Nutritional medicine practitioner views food, diet and nutritional supplements from the perspective of their therapeutic potential, providing dietary advice to clients and prescribing nutritional supplements on a broad range of health conditions,” he said.
Amiengheme said that average life span in the country was about 46 years and attributed it to the consumption of processed foods.[eap_ad_2]
He said life span in some countries, including Japan and China, was longer “because they eat more nutritionally balanced food.”
He therefore advised Nigerians to avoid junk food to prevent diseases, adding that fast food lacked nutrients.
He explained that research had shown that what people ate or failed to eat could lead to sickness.
“For instance, vitamin C, which is found in plants, fruits and vegetable, is vital for the prevention of scurvy while iodine is for prevention of goiter and iron is vital for prevention of anemia.
“But when people go for processed food they miss out all these nutrients which make them to fall sick,” he said.
The nutritionist pointed out that parents had formed the habit of feeding their children with processed food and warned that such practice was a “time bomb.”
“Parents should feed their children with natural foods to prevent illness,” he added. (NAN)[eap_ad_3]
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