UK-based cardiologist warns Nigerians against fatty foods

A Nigerian-born, UK-based cardiologist, Dr. Onyekwelu Chibuike Nzewi has warned Nigerians against consuming high cholesterol foods which could cause blockage of the arteries that supply blood to the heart, thereby causing heart attack and sudden death. Dr. Nzewi, who works at the Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH), Belfast, United Kingdom, and also the founder of Save […]

A Nigerian-born, UK-based cardiologist, Dr. Onyekwelu Chibuike Nzewi has warned Nigerians against consuming high cholesterol foods which could cause blockage of the arteries that supply blood to the heart, thereby causing heart attack and sudden death.

Dr. Nzewi, who works at the Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH), Belfast, United Kingdom, and also the founder of Save a Heart Foundation, a registered charity organization in the UK said that most sudden deaths witnessed so far in the country, especially among lawmakers at the National Assembly who reportedly collapsed and died, were attributable to heart attack resulting from blockage of the arteries that supplied blood to the heart.

In an interview with newsmen at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu, Dr Nzewi said citizens who are in the habit of eating fatty foods, were at risk of having blockage in the arteries that supply blood to their heart and could suffer heart attack.

Dr Nzewi and other foreign cardiologists in collaboration with local ones are currently conducting open heart surgery on adults at the UNTH, Enugu.

Describing the situation in which people eat fatty foods in the country as an epidemic about to happen, the cardiologist said: “All these senators and members of the House of Reps that suddenly died, it couldn’t have been any other thing; it’s just heart attack.”

He further said that if Nigerians failed to grapple with it, they would be in serious problem, adding that the diagnosis could easily be detected early.

“In which case, you can now plan the treatment by simple test – exercise-stress test. The symptomatic heart disease means that the blood supply to the heart is not adequate; so the patient is disturbed by chest pain,” he said.

He said: “In Nigeria, there are three categories of heart diseases that we urgently need to attend to – congenial heart disease; children born with deformity in the heart; whether you are white, yellow or brown, one percent of every life birth has congenital heart disease.

“Secondly, we still have predominant effect of rheumatic fever; these are things that start with what looks like sore throat not treated; eventually it gets to affect the heart valve, ten, twenty years later and you begin to have narrowing or the contraction or leaking  of the valve. Those patients, you can manage by stabilizing them, buy time and schedule the operation.

 “The third which is, if we don’t grapple with it, adequately, it’s an epidemic that is waiting to happen; it’s seismic heart disease which means the deposition of cholesterol in the arteries that supply the heart. Why is it common here? Because we thought the western diet is the best. Nobody eats our native food; we go for artificial, preserved oil, and it’s an epidemic already with Nigeria.”   

As a way out of the problem, Dr. Nzewi suggested that people above 50 years should engage in stress-exercise-test: “My proposal is that anybody – all of you – that is above 50 should avail himself or herself with the opportunity to have a stress-exercise test. During the exercise, and if there is limited supply of blood to the heart, it will manifest; not by you having chest pain, but the changes in the ECG should alert the cardiologist to more tests. And if he identifies that you need something done to prevent heart attack, then it will be done for you,” he explained.