On Saturday 20^th February, we attended Black Action for Health’s African-Caribbean Health Day. This event aimed to provide experts in the field with a platform to raise awareness of the health issues that are of particular concern to the African and Caribbean community. A key part of this event was highlighting the fact that ur community are more likely to die too early from or suffer from preventable diseases.

The event was hosted by Dr Charlie Easmon, Medical Director at Your Excellent Health Service and the actor Hugh Quarshie with remarks from the president of the Royal College of Nursing Cecilia Amin and the Mayor of Lambeth Donatus Anyanwu.

Obesity

The event began with a presentation by Dr George Grimble on ‘The Importance of  a Healthy Weight and Low Waist Size’. From Dr Grimble we learnt that the prevalence of obesity has increased significantly over the past 20 years and those who are overweight or obese are at increased risked of premature death with many diseases being linked to obesity. Additionally, there is a huge cost associated with obesity with a recent report by McKinsey and Co stating that the cost of obesity is $2 Trillion.

Dr Grimble stated that the rise in obesity is due to our lifestyles becoming remarkably sedentary which means we are in a positive energy balance (we aren’t burning off what we eat) and this makes us all more likely to gain weight.  He explained that for many people weight gain is gradual and occurs from 30 years of eating what equates to 200-240 large meals. What this means  is that when it comes to weight loss  we have to “uneat” these 200-240 meals and this will take a long time, there is no quick fix to weight loss.  He stressed that mainstream diets don’t work over the long-term and that to achieve long-term weight loss requires a change in lifestyle and the right motivation – the desire to achieve good health.  He told the audience there is no secret to weight loss it’s all about good nutrition, it’s tough but we can all do it.

Dr Grimble spoke about research that showed that what is important for weight loss is reducing our energy intake (i.e. what we eat). This is more important than exercise. Whilst exercise is good for overall general health and some weight loss we can achieve more significant weight loss through managing our energy intake.  Additionally, what we have to do is pay attention to belly fat, this is what increases our risk of a number of diseases such as diabetes. It was interesting to note that Asians and the African-Caribbean community are more sensitive to the effects of belly fat and people from these communities with belly fat are more likely to develop diabetes, stroke, hypertension and metabolic syndrome  than their white counterparts with the same amount of belly fat.  Because of this it is more important for black people to be as lean as possible and to be as physically active as possible.

Blood Pressure
Next, we heard from Prof Graham McGregor who delivered a presentation on ‘Raised Blood Pressure and the Black Community’. In his presentation Prof McGregor stated that raised blood pressure is by far the biggest cause of death in the UK with the risk of ill health starting at 115mmHg.   He explained that a raised blood pressure kills through direct effects but also indirect effects. He demonstrated that people with low blood pressure are at a lower risk of stroke, heart disease and many other health conditions and the most important strategy that we can use to improve people’s health is that of reducing everyone’s blood pressure, which is a more effective strategy than treatment.

Prof McGregor spoke about treatment and stated that there are a number of drugs available to treat high blood pressure with very clear guidelines on how they should be used, the use of these drugs can be confusing. He stated that black patients shouldn’t use ACE inhibitors as these aren’t effective in this population.  He reminded the audience that if you have high blood pressure you have to do something about it. You have to take control of your treatment and be assertive with your GP and make sure you’re getting the best care.  He stated that he sees many patients being poorly managed so it’s important that guidelines are followed.

Prof MacGregor then discussed black people and salt. We learnt that up to 5000 years ago we weren’t eating very much salt and we’re now eating significantly more salt than our body needs. We were surprised to learn that 80% of our salt intake is hidden in processed food, takeaways, fast food and restaurant food. He stated that there has been a huge drive to get the food industry to reduce the amount of salt in their products. Over the past few years there has been some success in this and a 30% reduction of salt in many products such as bread has been achieved which has resulted in an overall reduction in the public’s blood pressure.   We learnt that black people are more sensitive to salt’s effect on blood pressure  making salt toxic to black people. Unfortunately we are addicted to salt with the majority of black people using large amounts of salt when preparing food. He recommended that all black people throw away their salt, stock cubes and salted seasonings stating that it takes four weeks to get accustomed to food cooked without salt.

Finally, Prof McGregor discussed genetics and said that there is a genetic element to high blood pressure, but it’s not clear what specific genes are involved; there are about 30 possible genes which researchers are looking it. He stressed that what they do know is that these genes are of no importance if you don’t eat salt.

These presentations really stood out for us

These two above presentations on obesity and high blood pressure really stood out for us as these are conditions that are very common in the African-Caribbean community and can easily be prevented through a healthy lifestyle and this was clearly articulated in both presentations.

Other presentations

Other presentations on the day were very interesting and these included a talk by Dr Adeola Olaitan on ‘Cancer of the Cervix –Inevitable or Avoidable’ where we learnt that through cervical screening and the HPV vaccination cervical cancer can be prevented . We also heard from Mr Leye Ajayi on ‘Prostate Cancer’ where he discussed black men’s high risk of developing this disease and the challenges that exist in diagnosis without a screening test. Finally, we heard from Dr Michael Rudenko who spoke about allergies.

As well as the main presentations we heard from Levi Roots who discussed eating ethically,  Brenda Thompson-Murray who explored the role of carers and Iyamide Thomas who gave an overview of sickle cell and the work of the Sickle Cell Society.

An excellent event

This was an excellent, informative event and we’d like to thank Dr Charlie Easmon for organising this event and look forward to the next one.