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Health Expert, OSARENKHOE ETHEL CHIMA-NWOGWUGWU
As Diabetes cases continue to rise across Nigeria, Health advocate, Osarenkhoe Ethel Chima-Nwogwugwu has urged Nigerians to pay closer attention to their daily habits and overall wellbeing. In a recent interview with City People, Publisher SEYE KEHINDE she spoke about her 25-year journey with Diabetes and shared practical insights on how diet, exercise, hydration, and lifestyle choices can make a significant difference in managing the condition. Below is her advice.
What advice would you give people who you see on a daily basis who live with diabetes?
I always tell them to embrace it.
Embrace your status, and do something about it. That’s what I always tell them. Then change your lifestyle.
I will always tell people that Diabetes is a blessing to me. Why am I saying that? It taught me how to eat healthy. It taught me how to eat right.
It taught me how to raise my family in a healthy way, because I was young. I just had to, I raised my family in a healthy way, which I think is a different thing I did from what my parents did.
My parents didn’t know much as I knew. So if they knew I guess they wouldn’t have died from the complications, though they were old. My dad was 112, but at an official age of 92, he was very, very proactive about his diabetes, because I think they said the white man he worked with taught him how to take care of himself. And then my mom was very pretty.
She wasn’t managed as much. She didn’t manage her environment, or the doctors around her didn’t manage her very well, I guess from the little I know. Then for now, my own time, I tell them to embrace your status.
One, change your diet. You must change your lifestyle. You must be deliberate about what you eat, what you drink. how you rest. See, water is life. It’s compulsory. Water is key.
Your guts need to be hydrated. Diabetes can be managed. It can be managed.
I didn’t know this much, not until I think after 15 years that I knew what I know so well Now with intermittent fasting, you can reduce the effect of diabetes, but it has helped me. Intermittent fasting helps me to really minimize complications that ordinarily you would have had from diabetes. Not living with diabetes for that long.
So what I tell people is, be deliberate about your food, be deliberate about your exercise, deliberate about what you drink, be deliberate about your sleep, be deliberate about you. And be proud to stand out and say, I’m living with diabetes. Diabetes does not define me. I define diabetes.
It’s not a death sentence. It’s just a condition. And it’s not what, like what we are preaching now is, don’t say we are diabetic. We are not. We are living with diabetes. We are living with lots of things.
I am pretty. I am a beautiful woman, mother of five. I’m an entrepreneur. I’m an advocate for non-communicable diseases. And I’m living with diabetes. I’m living with obesity.
And some of my brothers and sisters are living with hypertension. Some are living with sickle cell and at the same time living with diabetes. So there are so many things, but no one should define us.
So that’s why I tell people, live above diabetes. Embrace it. Change your lifestyle. Just be deliberate and love yourself. That’s what I tell people. And so far it’s been, they’ve been responding positively.
I’ve changed my environment. My children, I have a 26 and a 16 year, about to be 16. They are going to take the same sermon to their homes they are going to build with their future partner. And everywhere they go, they take the same sermon. I’ve taught them, anybody who comes around me, everybody is conscious of what they eat and what they drink and they’re deliberate about their food. Food, diet, rest, and water is key in our health.
Telling the difference. I don’t use the seasonings that are wrapped to be sold. I don’t want to mention their names. I’m very particular about that. From your table to your plates. That’s the sermon From the farm to your plates. You don’t need to process it. That’s, you don’t need to add other chemicals. No pluck it from the farm, peel it, cut it and even eat it raw. Pluck it, wash it, dust it. If you don’t have to, if you think it’s okay, eat it. Beautiful.
That’s what our forefathers did. And I’ve been enjoying life since I started that method. Because I wanted to live like my father and to see what he did differently. And I noticed that’s what he did differently. He was natural by everything around him. He had 32 complete teeth.
He was natural about everything around him. He had 32 teeth complete. I’ve lost five, but I’m not gonna lose any more. So I attempted that some few years ago, and it’s been amazing. So it was that intermittent fasting I did, I was introduced to it two years ago. It has amazingly changed my world, so I tell people, “Please take intermittent fasting.” Go back to when our forefathers, they wake up in the morning. They drink water from the clay pot, which is alkaline.
The clay pot is alkaline. And because water there was clean. They pack their things, they go to farm, and remember, they have not eaten. So that is intermittent fasting from the last night, By the time they are coming back or they are doing business, they work until mid-afternoon or afternoon. and they don’t eat that much, They return home. By 4:00, 5:00, they take their dinner and that is the end. They eat on time. Unlike our lifestyle in Lagos. It’s 12:00am we are still eating dinner. The body does not require such stress. So that is the difference. So I want to live that life.
Is it possible to treat diabetes fully?
Fully?
Sometimes people say, “Oh, if you take this particular drug”
That is how you tame diabetes. I will not agree it’s cures completely, you’ll completely get rid of diabetes forever. Tame it, yes. I agree. Remission, yes, you can have diabetes remission. We use the word remission. can you have diabetes and type 2? I do, I see, hear that people with, type 1 have had remission when they had some transplants done for them, which is great.
Science is evolving. more discovery. So what I will say is yes, you can. not that you can be cured completely. If you go back to the old habits, I think diabetes will show your face again. So I wouldn’t say that it’s completely curable. Yeah, the word curable, I would not use. Say manageable, yes.
Let’s talk about those who come up with natural remedies. Some people talk about natural remedies.
You know I said that taking care of diabetes is in what we eat. What we eat is who we are. Diabetes is around us in Africa. We have herbs, we have beautiful fruits, we have a lot of seeds, nuts, that does magic to our body.
If you can take them in that natural state, it can help to bring it down. It’s not a cure. I repeat, if there is a cure, if they say they have a cure, I don’t agree. There’s no cure. I’ve asked all of them. If you say you have a cure, please bring it to me. My name is Osarenkhoe Ethel Chima-Nwogwugwu. I’m living with type 2. I am dying to embrace that cure with my heart. None of them have been able to. So they just tell me, “Pay this amount of money.” There’s nothing like that.
You should hit your chest and go over and say, yeah, you have a vegetable that you put together and you can show me that person that you have cured. Let me see. None of them have been able to, so I wouldn’t agree.
I know that there are things you can do, especially if you are newly diagnosed and you follow that method of cut down things, exercise, you can turn it around and it does not take hold of you and made a mess of your life or your organs. Yes, you can turn it and you’re not going to remission. That’s because you are newly diagnosed.
If you have, your system has been damaged by it for long, bro, you need to just follow through and help yourself with intermittent fasting, eating healthy and some medication and stay and enjoy your life till God calls you home. But I show that you prevent complications and it’s very possible, very possible, but I don’t think it cures.
