An orange a day...a world health day homage

Same is the case to health, many take their relatively good health for granted and one does not eat an orange until the doctor orders them to.

Today is the World Health Day which is observed every April 7 (the birthday of the organisation) and this year, the theme is ‘Stay Super, Beat Diabetes.’

Diabetes is a condition where the body fails to absorb glucose (sugar) from the blood leaving it to accumulate hence the alias ‘sugar’ in many other languages including Kiswahili. The body fails because of several factors that affect its insulin levels. Insulin is the hormone that helps cells absorb glucose.

So the one thing persons with diabetes know is the value of eating well, watching that starch level and cutting on your sugar and salt intake can mean life or death and that is hardly dramatic.

Diabetes can cause serious health complications including heart disease, blindness, kidney failure, and lower-extremity amputations.
There are two main types of diabetes referred to as Type 1 and Type 2. In Type 1, your immune system attacks and destroys your insulin producing cells leaving you with little or no insulin at all.

Worth noting is that Type 1 diabetes is less common in people who were breastfed and in those who first ate solid foods at later ages, this according to the diabetes journal.

In type 2 diabetes, the body either doesn't make enough insulin or can't use its own insulin as well as it should and this is the most common form of diabetes.

Worth noting in this case is that, lifestyle influences the development of type 2 diabetes and studies show that it is possible to delay or prevent Type 2 diabetes by exercising and losing weight.

Also, Type 2 diabetes has a stronger link to family history than Type 1, although it too depends on environmental factors and the risk of having Type 2 diabetes increases as a person gets older.

All in all, eating healthy and exercising is the way to go and when it comes to diabetes (and most all diseases) your lifestyle, that is the sum of your eating habits, exercise regiment, smoking or not smoking etc, can mean life or death.

WHO warns that diabetes and its complications bring about substantial economic loss to people with diabetes and their families and to health systems and national economies through direct medical costs and loss of work and wages.

The disease is among the non communicable diseases that the global 2030 Agenda intends to by one third by 2030.

Your lifestyle is vital to realizing this goal. Also, because you are a role model to those around you (especially your children) and in light of the genetic relations of diabetes, you must actively promote healthy lifestyles by practicing them yourself and remember, an orange a day keeps the doctor away.