Natural Cures for Cancers, Heart Diseases

FILES] Plant-based foods and organically produced foods are environment and human-friendly while providing tips on foods for the prevention of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). Photo; PIXABAY

Until now, studies have associated refined foods with chronic and non-communicable diseases such as cancer, heart disease, kidney failure, and diabetes, stroke, among others.

But researchers have found that replacing refined foods that are rich in added sugar and salt with natural alternatives especially from plants could prevent the onset of chronic diseases.

Scientists have urged Nigerians to consume locally-produced foods and fruits as they contain nutrients that can serve as medicine in the body. They warned against the consumption of imported food products as some may have been contaminated in the process of shipping them into the country.

A professor of pharmacognosy and a former senior research associate at the Division of Experimental Therapeutics of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Washington, D.C., Prof. Maurice Iwu, said his team had validated local foods such as bitter kola, coconut oil, Zobo (from Hibiscus sabdarifa/Roselle), bitter leaf, Moringa oleifera, tomato, Sour sop, African bush’ mango (Ogbono), among others as medicines.

Iwu told journalists that his team has developed dietary supplements based on these local foods for managing chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, prostate cancer, erectile dysfunction, Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV)/ Acquired

 Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), among others. lwu said they have developed dietary supplements based on these local foods for managing chronic diseases.