Cancer burden, challenge to sustainable health —Expert

TowardS the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), an expert, Professor Oyeronke Odunola has called for concerted effort towards achieving universal health coverage in addressing the growing burden of cancer and other noncommunicable diseases in Nigeria.

Professor Odunola gave the charge in an inaugural lecture entitled “The Bigger is the Sadder: Cancer Burden as a Challenge to Sustainable Health” at the University of Ibadan.

The don stated that despite the 2017 SDG’s review report indicating a small decline in risk of dying between ages 30 and 70 from non-communicable diseases as cancer, the rate of the progress seems slow for the full achievements of the SDGs and targets by 2030.

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Professor Odunola said that cancer is still the most common, severe and most dreadful medical problem globally with every one in six deaths globally being cancer-related.

She added: “The bigger the cancer burden, the greater the financial and economic burden, the sadder the social and global health impact.”

Odunola, who described cancer as consequences of abnormal cell growth and proliferation, said majority of cancer-related deaths occur when cancer cells spread and invade other tissues and organs of the body.

The expert assured that most cancers are not inherited, but sometimes are due to exposure to cancer-causing agents, including infections, chemicals and ionising radiation from radioactive materials, cellphones, electric power lines and some household appliances.

The don, however, said some families are more susceptible to developing certain cancers than others but that age, stress and increase in negative emotions, alcohol use and abuse, poor diet, obesity and a sedentary lifestyle can increase individuals’ risk of developing cancer.

She also warned that aflatoxins contamination of foods was a challenge to sustainable health, especially in humans, animals and the environment.

According to her, boric acid, a banned food additive and preservative added to the dough for quality improvement in Nigeria as well as exposure to petroleum refining chemicals can enhance aflatoxin-induced cell damage and subsequently cancer.

She listed warning signs of cancer to include a change in bowel or bladder habits, sore throat or any wound that does not heal and unusual bleeding or discharge from any of the body openings.

Others are, thickening or lump in the breast or elsewhere, indigestion or difficulty in swallowing, obvious change in size and appearance if warts or moles and nagging cough or hoarseness.

Professor Odunola, however, declared that studies had shown components of many medicinal plants, vegetables and spices as onion, garlic, bitter kola, acacia honey, nutmeg, African locust beans, soursop, alligator pepper, jute, bitter leaf. Lemon grass and shea tree can mitigate the effect of some cancer-causing agents.

She, therefore, stressed the need to develop healthy eating regimens and dietary intervention programmes planned for all ages to ensure that people eat well and live well for sustainable health for all.