Plug more funds into cancer prevention – Oncologist urges

Oct 01, 2016 News

Oncologist, Dr. Carl Niamatali

The amount of money spent to treat cancer patients is astronomical. In fact according to Oncologist, Dr. Carl Niamatali, “Cancer will cost the global economy US$1.2 trillion by 2020 and that is an enormous amount of money.”
Dr. Niamatali is, moreover, of the opinion that Guyana should seek to help reverse this trend by opting to plug money into preventative measures. He is confident that if even 10 per cent of the money currently being spent on cancer is directed to preventing cancers, Guyana could be in a much better place.
And prevention could be fostered simply by raising awareness and educating people about how they could protect their health.
“We want greater awareness, we want to educate…” said Dr. Niamatali as he underscored “we need to spend more money on prevention and spend less money on building health centres and hospitals and providing medical treatment.”
According to the Oncologist, currently the majority of cancers that manifest are preventable. But he observed that far too many people seek medical attention when their condition is at a dire stage.
“The majority of patients who present with cancer, this is about 80 to 90 per cent, present with stage three and four of the disease and within three to six months 90 per cent of them are dead…We cannot cure stage three and four,” asserted Dr. Niamatali.
Some of the factors that can contribute to cancer include the use of tobacco, alcohol, obesity, eating the wrong types of foods, that is, foods with too much calories, salt and sugar. Consuming the wrong foods coupled with the lack of exercise could contribute to the prevalence of cancers. “You cannot eat as much as you want, when and what you want without exercising; our actions have consequences,” the Oncologist emphasised as he stressed “we need to make better choices.”
According to Dr. Niamatali, helping to prevent cancer could be as simple as eating certain foods such as whole grain, multi grain, more vegetables, more fruits, turmeric, ginger, garlic, tomatoes and broccoli, among others. “Anything green; brightly coloured (foods) like peppers are good…more than half of a plate should be greens (vegetables), the other half should be split with healthy starch – nothing white, multi-grain bread or brown rice, whole wheat or whole grain pasta and fruits.
Fish is the number one protein food; all fishes are good,” added the Oncologist. He, however, noted that poultry cooked without skin, and red meat, once or twice weekly, could also be important to one’s diet.
“How you prepare the food is also important; avoid frying. If you are going to fry use good oil; use canola or olive oil. Try avoid grilling and burning stuff because it produces carcinogen (substances and exposures that can lead to cancer),” said Dr. Niamatali as he disclosed that “diet plays a major role…it causes over six different types of cancers.”
However, there are cancers that are transmitted by sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Dr. Niamatali noted that there are about five STIs that can cause cancer. Among these he named the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) which is known to cause cancer of the cervix which is in fact the number one cancer in Guyana. In fact HPV, according to Dr. Niamatali, is the number one STI globally.
He revealed that in the United States alone there are over 80 million people who are infected. While the immune system of most people infected are able to fight the virus, the Oncologist noted that there is a vaccine now available that can prevent the virus altogether. “Two shots of this vaccine can protect girls between 11 and 13 (before their sexual debut). It is a great step forward,” said Dr. Niamatali.
The local Health Ministry has already introduced the HPV vaccination and this process is expected to help protect a wide cross-section of girls from the virus thereby helping to reduce Guyana’s rate of HPV infection.
“If we can take this cancer off the table by administering the vaccine and screening and follow-up…if we detect anything early we can cure it. If cancer is detected early we can cure it,” asserted Dr. Niamatali.
Other STIs that could cause cancer include the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and the Human T-cell lymphotropic virus (HTLV). While patients who develop cancer from HTLV are dead within one year, those infected with Hepatitis B related cancer can be saved, like HPV, with a vaccine.

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Latest News