The pandemic of obesity in South Africa is a result of our ‘Americanised’ food environment and the responsibility should be shifted from individuals to government policies, according to experts. 

“I hear people saying Burger King is coming to South Africa, it’s fantastic. Krispy Kreme is coming, wonderful,” said Professor Karen Hoffman from Wits University.

But, she said, in other parts of the world – the ‘western world’ – these outlets are “the lowest of the low” because there is an awareness about how hazardous their products are to human health.

Lynn Moeng, Chief Director of Health Promotion, Nutrition and Oral Health at the Department of Health said that South Africa’s weight problem is escalating and that the ambitious government target to reduce obesity by 10% by 2020 will not be met. 

“Everything that made Americans too fat, they are exporting to us so we can be like them,” she said. 

Speaking at a press briefing in Johannesburg on World Obesity Day [October 10] she said “our economic policies are affecting us” placing big business and trade interests over health priorities. 

We are already the most obese country in sub-Saharan Africa and have the highest prevalence of diabetes on the continent, according to Johannesburg-based endocrinologist Dr Sundeep Ruder. 

He said that the true scale of the problem in South Africa is hard to quantify because about half of all people with diabetes have not been diagnosed and research has estimated that rates are going to continue to skyrocket: by 48% by 2040. 

“More people [in 2015] died because complications related to diabetes than malaria, tuberculosis and HIV combined,” he said.

Despite the fact that the risk factors for conditions like obesity and diabetes, such as diet, physical activity and sleep, are “modifiable” and related to lifestyles they are increasing “at an alarming rate”.

“What happens in our bodies is affected by our relationship with the environment,” he said. 

The environment most South Africans live in promotes the cheaper, and more accessible, food options that are usually ultra-processed and very high in sugar, salt and fat.

“You can talk about gluttony but what is failing us is education… One can of soft drink per day increases your risk of developing diabetes by 15%… The billboards [we see] do not say this,” he said. 

These products are often relentlessly marketed to children, which establishes unhealthy food preferences from an early age and which are very difficult to change later on in life. 

“Children repeatedly exposed to marketing portray unhealthy food as fun, cool, exciting and positive. This ties in with using popular toys and movies in promotional packaging and even to in-school marketing,” said Hoffman.

“A study we ran in Soweto found that 50% of schools had Coca-Cola signs in their grounds – and this was five years after they said ‘We are no longer marketing to children’.”

She said that industries are targeting and manipulating the most vulnerable populations, including children. For example, the way products are placed in supermarkets is “not random” and products high in sugar are often placed lower on shelves; eye-level for children. 

This is why the onus should be placed on government to regulate the environment, rather than placing the blame on individuals for continuing to make unhealthy choices. 

These regulations include the tax on sugary beverages that began in South Africa in April. But public health experts are encouraging the government to go further and regulate advertising of unhealthy foods aimed at children as well as clamping down on the labelling of packaged foods.

– Health-e News

Image credit: iStock

Amy Green and Pontsho Pilane

Your mother told you not to do it, and new research confirms that nose-picking isn’t healthy for you or those around you.

In a study involving 40 adults, British researchers found that the bacteria behind potentially lethal pneumonia could be spread by picking and rubbing the nose.

A major cause of death

It was known that the pneumococcus bacteria that cause pneumonia spread through airborne droplets from coughs and sneezes. But this study is the first to show that it can easily spread between the nose and the hands.

The health implications are nothing to sniff at, the research team said.

“Pneumococcal infection is a major cause of death around the world, and it is estimated that it is responsible for 1.3 million deaths in children under five years [of age] annually,” said lead researcher Victoria Connor. She’s a clinical research fellow at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in England.

“The elderly and people with other causes of impaired immunity, such as chronic illness, are also at an increased risk of pneumococcal infections,” she added.

Connor called the current understanding of how pneumonia is transmitted “poor, so we wanted to look at how it may be spread in the community”.

Bacteria thrive in wet environments

In the study, the hands of the 40 healthy adults were contaminated with pneumococcus bacteria. Participants were divided into four groups. The “wet sniff” group sniffed their hands, which had been contaminated with water laden with pneumococcus bacteria.

The “dry sniff” group did the same, but this time the bacteria were applied dry, to the back of the hand. A third group, called “wet poke”, picked or poked their nose with a finger that had been contaminated with bacteria-laden water, while the “dry poke” group did the same, but with fingers tainted with air-dried bacteria samples.

The result: while pneumococcus was readily passed on in all of the test groups, hand-to-nose spread of the germ was highest among the “wet sniff” and “wet poke” groups, probably because bacteria die off more in dryer environments, the team said.

The findings were reported in the European Respiratory Journal.

Positive side to nose-picking

The study suggests that good hand hygiene, as well as keeping kids’ toys clean, could help protect youngsters from catching and spreading the bacteria to other children. It could also cut down on spread to a child’s elderly relatives, who may be more susceptible to infection, the researchers noted.

Of course, Connor acknowledged that “it might not be realistic to get children to stop picking, poking and rubbing their noses”.

There might even be one positive side to nose-picking. “[The] presence of the bacteria can sometimes boost the immune system of children and can reduce their chances of carrying it again later in life,” Connor noted in a journal news release.

But spreading these germs can cause real harm to others, she stressed.

So, restraining kids from picking their noses “may be important when children are in contact with elderly relatives or relatives with reduced immune systems”, Connor suggested.

“In these situations, ensuring good hand hygiene and cleaning of toys or surfaces would likely reduce transmission, and reduce the risk of developing pneumococcal infection such as pneumonia,” she said.

Image credit: iStock

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Vuyo Radebe, a Mthatha-born fitness celebrity, is inspiring people on social media to live a healthy lifestyle.

To her followers on social media, the 34-year-old is known as the healthy body pilot who teaches people all about a healthy lifestyle.

‘Food was my comfort’

Growing up, Radebe was never interested in sports or fitness activities. “When it came to sports at school, I always did the minimum required, always on beginners’ level,” she says. “I remember I did beginners’ hockey, tennis and basketball. It was so funny; when they started girls’ basketball in high school I joined and was picked to be in the A team. I don’t know how that happened.”

But one aspect of Radebe’s healthy lifestyle that was cultivated in her early childhood was about eating healthily and portion control. “I have a healthy, nutrition-conscious mother. She always used to reprimand me if I was eating a too much, especially junk food. I’d say my mother back then was a fitness fanatic, according to today’s standards.” 

In 2003, Radebe went to study commerce at the University of Cape Town and started engaging in an unhealthy diet. “Many kilometres away from my mother’s healthy meals and dealing with stressful studies, at times food was my only comfort,” she admits.

After eating dinner with her friends, she would toast numerous slices of bread in the residence dining hall, which she would and eat with margarine and jam.

“When studying, I’d snack on all the wrong things. Sugary snacks, rusks and biscuits, to name a few,” she says. As a result, Radebe gained a lot of weight.

Tough in the beginning

After failing a course in 2007, which she had to repeat the following year, Radebe did some introspection. “I decided I was not going to be overweight, not a graduate and unemployed.” She then started to exercise.

“Running in the streets challenged me and took me out of my comfort zone. Without a fitness device back then, my runs were 3km maximum.”

She found running was tough in the beginning because she was so unfit, but she quickly noticed how great she felt at the end of each run. 

“Before I ran, I used to look forward to the happy feeling after each run and that feeling motivated me to keep running. So, in a nutshell, dealing with failure led me to exercise and I started eating healthier meals,” she said.

When she moved to Johannesburg mid-2008, she was intimidated by the traffic at first. “I entered a 10km race in 2009 and the training gave me enough drive and motivation to run in the streets amidst all the Johannesburg traffic chaos,” said Radebe. “There were many more race entries after my first 10km. I also joined a gym. I entered races, leading up to a 42km marathon in preparation for the Two Oceans Marathon.”

One day at a time

Radebe likes to involve her family in her health and fitness lifestyle as much as she can. “At times, we all go for walks around the block with my daughter sometimes walking on her own, and in her pram when she gets tired.

“For someone who is starting out their health and fitness journey, I advise you take it one day at a time. Do not go on a diet. Transform into new healthy eating habits with time,” said Radebe.

She added that diets can get demotivating as they tend to be extremely restrictive on food choices, and for this reason they are also short term. When you change a lifestyle, it is long term; it is for life.

“My goal in getting South Africa healthier and moving away from obesity is to end the idea that eating healthily has to be expensive and time-consuming by sharing cost-effective and easy ways of maintaining a healthy nutritional lifestyle.

“The same applies to exercise. A beginner must not start with an extremely challenging workout programme that will leave them demotivated and losing interest. Start small, I always say to someone who has never exercised. Even a 10-minute walk is good enough as a start.”

Radebe says, “I believe in taking it one day at a time rather than going full out, only to crash. Eventually all your small efforts will add up to an effortless healthy and fit lifestyle.” – Health-e News.

^{Image credit: Health-e News}

Thabo Molelekwa

After millions of years living in constant darkness, a species of blind cavefish found only in Somalia has lost an ancient system of DNA repair. That DNA repair system, found in organisms including bacteria, fungi, plants, and most other animals, harnesses energy from visible light to repair DNA damage induced by ultraviolet (UV) light.

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The quick weight loss that occurs after bariatric surgery seems to have an unintended consequence – a greater risk of gallstones, a new study suggests.

The rapid loss of pounds was linked to a 10-fold increase in the hospital admissions for pancreatitis, gallstones and other gallbladder conditions.

“Gallstones are quite common in post-bariatric surgery patients. Medications called bile acid sequestrants can help, but patients have to take them several times a day,” explained study co-author Dr Violeta Popov.

She’s an assistant professor of medicine at NYU School of Medicine and Langone Medical Center in New York City.

In years past, surgeons often removed the gallbladder as part of weight-loss surgeries. However, as weight-loss surgeries have become less invasive, with smaller and smaller incisions, surgeons stopped taking the gallbladder out during the procedure, Popov said. She’s also director of bariatric endoscopy at VA New York Harbor Healthcare System.

The researchers looked at records from a national sample of inpatient admissions and found more than 1.5 million admissions for gallstones, other gallbladder conditions and acute pancreatitis from 2006 to 2014. The average patient age was between 52 and 64 years old.

The findings showed that there was a 10- to 100-fold higher risk of these conditions in people who had undergone weight-loss surgery. And the average patient age was 43 to 55.

People who’d had weight-loss surgery were less likely to die, tended to stay less time in the hospital and their gallbladder disease tended to cost less to treat, the researchers said.

Dr  David Victor III, an American College of Gastroenterology expert, said it wasn’t clear before this study that bariatric surgery boosted the risk of gallstones and other gallbladder conditions.

“Obesity is known to increase the risk of gallstones, so patients who have indications for bariatric surgery would have an increased risk of gallstones,” said Victor, who’s also an assistant professor of medicine at the Institute for Academic Medicine at Houston Methodist.

“This study is interesting because patients who have bariatric surgery may be at risk for gallstones that we have underappreciated before,” Victor said.

Both Victor and Popov said it’s too soon to recommend again removing the gallbladder when having weight-loss surgery, but it’s a question worthy of additional study.

Popov said the rapid weight loss is likely what triggers the gallbladder conditions, though the study did not prove that.

Victor said it’s also too soon to know why there’s an increased risk, but it could be because people are obese or it may be a technical aspect of the surgery that boosts the risk. And, he added, it’s possible the risk is not permanent.

He agreed that doctors should consider putting patients on bile acid sequestrants to help prevent gallstones and other conditions.

The study was presented Monday at the American College of Gastroenterology annual meeting, in Philadelphia. Research presented at medical meetings should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.