By: Aduwo Ayodele

A Professor of Nutrition and Lipid Metabolism at the University of Ibadan, Professor Kayode Solomon Adedapo has on Thursday, January 18th 2024, called on governments across all levels to increase budgetary allocation to the health sector, in a bid to restore primary, secondary, and tertiary care.

This recommendation, according to the Don will enable adequate, efficient and affordable access to health by the Nigerian populace; as it would allow the tertiary health care centers to be more focused on research and teaching practices.

Professor Adedapo who made the call while delivering the 539th inaugural lecture of the University of Ibadan on behalf of the Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences, submitted that this would possibly address the issue of late presentation of people with chronic diseases.

In his lecture entitled “Elucidating the Fingerprints of Chronic Diseases: That Life May be Preserved” the Professor stated that “the human body is capable of supporting the owner for many years given the right environment and good nurture and that our life expectancy is a function of how well adjusted we are to all the twists and turns in our environment”.

According to Professor Adedapo, human diet, lifestyle, thought patterns, and psycho-emotional states all combine to define the ecology of our body, while explaining that the body is indeed capable of repairing itself, provided the early warning signs are heeded and the immune system is competent in checkmating the body’s invasion.

“When the early warnings/symptoms such as pain, swelling, weight loss, etc, are ignored, the body fails to repair and moves from the state of ‘ease’ to ‘disease’.

The inaugural lecturer also has recommended that dietary remedy through more uncooked food (fruits and vegetables), and elimination of simple carbohydrate, white or brown sugar, refined flour products, fried foods, animal milk and food additives produced with monosodium glutamate should be considerably sought after.

Professor Adedapo also recommended other remedies that are useful to decrease the toxicity of the body to pave the way for recovery that life may be preserved. He emphasized detoxification using purified water, a balanced diet, mild to moderate exercise, green teas, supplements, and fasting, among other methods.