You hurriedly clicked to find out what this topic was talking about right? Lol

Before you close page, WAIT!!!!!

If you are between the ages of 15 – 35, I’m here to talk about your health. It won’t hurt to scroll down and find out what you may never know is silently killing you as a young person.

Knowledge is power. This article might save your life.

How healthy are you? Do you have a healthy diet? Do you exercise regularly? Do you drink at least 8 glasses of water a day? Do you get enough sleep every day? Do you go for regular checkups?

There are a lot of diseases that are growing up; most of us probably thought were for old people. Diseases like diabetes, stroke, cancer, fibroid, arthritis etc. But these days, diseases have no age restriction. It can happen to anyone. The kinds of foods we eat these days – over-processed foods, carbohydrates, fast foods, our lifestyle, and ignorance about the disease and how to cure them can make us susceptible to them.

While it is important that we are healthy and keep our bodies healthy by doing regular exercises, eating healthy and right, eating fruits and vegetables, there are other things we need to ensure that we are living a completely healthy life. Plus, early detection and treatment of some diseases is key.

You can’t put a price on your health right? Health, they say is wealth, and prevention is better than cure. Would you rather spend all your money treating an ailment or preventing it?

I guess while we think that the major diseases that we need to prevent are HIV, STIs, VVFs, we ignore other diseases like Hepatitis B, (Yes, it is a preventable disease. http://www.fwhc.org/health/nocancer.htm) or kidney disease.

This disease can kill a young person.

Hepatitis

Hepatitis B is a liver disease. Hepatitis means inflammation of the liver. Inflammation is the painful, red swelling that results when tissues of the body become injured or infected. Inflammation can cause organs to not work properly.

Symptoms of Hepatitis B:

• a longer than usual amount of time for bleeding to stop
• swollen stomach
• easy bruising
• easy fatigue
• pain in the abdomen
• loss of appetite
• itching all over the body
• Grey-colored stools
• Dark yellow urine like tea or coke.

How do people get Hepatitis B?

• by being born to a mother with hepatitis B
• by having sex with an infected person
• by being tattooed or pierced with unsterilized tools that were used on an infected person
• by getting an accidental needle stick with a needle that was used on an infected person

Avoid Hepatitis B by:

• using a condom during sex
• not sharing drug needles
• wearing gloves if you have to touch another person’s blood
• not borrowing another person’s toothbrush, razor, or anything else that could have blood on it
• making sure any tattoos or body piercings you get are done with sterile tools

Now that we have successfully identified this disease that can kill a young person, there are things that we can do to prevent disease or manage it. If you have not been to a doctor in the last six months, then I advice that you to do the following:

• Go for regular checkups to find out about your sugar/glucose level, take a HIV test (AAAHHH!!!), and check your BMI. For the women, go and see your OB/GYN and for the men, see an urologist or a general medical doctor to get your reproductive systems checked out.
• Make sure that your living right and eating right.
• Avoid having sex with multiple partners
• Drink at least eight to ten glasses of water a day (Hard, i know. But try at least 5)
• Avoid sharing clippers or needles
• Use protection (i.e. condoms always)
• Eat at least one fruit a day
• Add vegetables to your regular carbohydrate.
• Cut out soft drinks or \”minerals\” (as it is popularly called in Nigeria)
• Cut down or cut-out processed food and prepare your own meals. Processed foods are not good because (1) most nutritional value is lost (2) the preservatives added are bad for our health.  Many processed foods contain a high amount of salt content, which leads to higher blood pressure and heart disease.

With these afore mentioned, I hope we will take these measures and live a happy and disease free life.

Have a happy weekend ya\’ll

ELOQUENT