Staff Reporter
Vice Chancellor Health Services Academy Islamabad Prof Dr Shehzad Ali Khan on Sunday said the non-communicable diseases (NCDs) have increased to dangerous levels and would further rise amid no change in people’s lifestyle.
“It takes time to change the lifestyle as 90 percent of Pakistanis do not do physical activity and only 10 percent of them only walk or exercise, leading to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) during the last ten years,” said Dr Shehzad while addressing the concluding session of a two-day international conference on “Non-Communicable Diseases” (NCDs) under the auspices of the Pakistan National Heart Association (PANAH) along with Chairperson, Chancellor Riphah University Rawalpindi Dr. Hassan Mehmood Khan.
Prof Dr Shehzad Ali Khan said that six of the health disorders were those caused due to our wrong choice of food and drink. “In future, 48 percent of men and 8 percent of women in Pakistan use tobacco.
Despite being an agricultural country, 75 percent of the people do not use fruits or vegetables on a daily basis, while 90 percent of the people were asked if they sleep, watch TV, or use mobile phones, 15 to 40 percent of young people have high cholesterol, one in four people suffer from hypertension, 90 percent people suffer from these diseases, 13 percent of the population is bearing diabetes,” he said while highlighting the outcomes of Global Diseases Survey being carried out.
The Global Diseases Survey is conducted every ten years. The survey showed gradual increase in non-communicable diseases.
We need to adopt healthy foods to get rid of them, he added. Chairperson, Chancellor Riphah University Rawalpindi Dr Hassan Mehmood Khan said the Department of Lifestyle Medicine headed by Shagufta Feroze was started at Rphah University two years ago.
“We also regularly conduct a three-month Lifestyle Medicine course. No disease can be cured by drugs alone. To control it, we have to change our lifestyle. We will try to make it a part of the curriculum in the coming days,” he added.
In the last ten years, no questions have been asked about nutrition and lifestyle, health promotion, this was not just a problem for Pakistan, but for the whole world, he added.
