'Lifestyle diseases' plaguing poor

High blood pressure, diabetes and other "lifestyle diseases" are no longer just for the rich and are wreaking havoc among
South Africa's poor.

Wilma Stassen: Health-e News Service, 13 February 2014

For many years, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like these were associated with the wealthy but not any more in a trend that is likely to get worse, according to Bob Mash, professor of family medicine and primary care at Stellenbosch University's Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. He said NCDs were emerging among all South Africans, particularly those coming from low socio-economic and poor communities, adding that hypertension, diabetes and asthma were among the top conditions currently seen in primary care. About one in ten people living in Cape Town is estimated to be diabetic, however recent research in Cape Town's low-income Bellville-South area found rates of diabetes three times that. According to Mash, poorer communities might struggle to not only find safe places to exercise but also to afford healthy food. He said the food industry does not make healthy food accessible.

And NCDs are affecting South Africans at younger ages than one would think. Mash said a lot of people died from NCDs in old age, but in SA a lot of these deaths were in the working-age population. He said people in their 40s, 50s and 60s were developing and dying from these diseases. Mash believes that the solution to the NCD epidemic lies in prevention. He suggested that health authorities draw on lessons learned from the HIV epidemic, such as awareness campaigns and patient management programmes, to curb the problem.

South Africa will also need to get to the root of risk factors. In 2013, Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi amended the Foodstuffs, Cosmetics and Disinfectants Act to set a maximum salt content for an array of food. New restrictions would require most bread producers to reduce the salt content of loaves by one percent by 2019. According to Mash, bread is the biggest contributor of salt to South Africans' diets. He said reducing salt content in bread might lead to massive reductions in the number of people who died of stroke and heart disease each year.