Our Shame
In Australia, our fat-cat bureaucrats, egghead scientists, over-lobbied politicians, salivating not-for-profit CEOs, conflicted dietitians organisations, greedy pharmaceutical companies and over sweetened food industry CEOs are debating obesity strategy and sugar or health taxes. The government has already dispensed a National Diabetes Strategy that this motley crew put together that wouldn’t even make it onto the fiction best seller’s list, let alone solve the problem, as it fails to contemplate changing dietary recommendations as solutions. Taxing us to tackle obesity? Unfortunately, they take themselves too seriously.
As a health consumer, what do you think? Before you answer, I’ll tell you that you should simply not give a damn (or insert your favourite four letter word here). Sorry for the language but when you realise that other than your statistic, it is not about you. Not one of these is truly advocating for you with your chronic obesity or diabetes. It is all to do with their interests like funding for their members and organisations, research buckets of money or profits. They have forgotten you and the experts are dead. After all, if they actually fix your chronic diabetes or obesity, what would they do with themselves?
Meanwhile, In Nigeria…
A quiet revolution is underway. Let us look at something that really should matter to you much more than the business plans and career advancement of all those types above.
Nigeria’s population is pushing 190 million. The traditional diet is quite high in carbohydrates with palm oil and other fats, and it used to be a sign of affluence to be chubby- but not anymore. It has upwards of five percent of those people with diabetes, many more pre-diabetic and far too many are obese. The obesity rate climbed eight times from 1.3% in 1974 to 10.3% in 2014. Fertility is impacted by PCOS. Yessiree, Nigeria has an insulin resistance problem.
Is Nigeria Lacking Dietetic Advice?
How can this be? Surely most people are not so affluent as to be obese? Nigerians probably have a good deal of plant-based diet as meat is more expensive. They have national dietary guidelines that are just as good as ours. Those guidelines recommend that Nigerians have a rich carbohydrate diet, limit fat and avoid saturated fat. Those guidelines say they should have lots of fruits and vegetables and not eat too much red meat. They have a dietitians association that gives them the same advice as everyone else in the world gets. Perhaps Nigerian Dietitians have the same problem as the DAA in that they have the same fantastic dietary guidelines, but no one follows them. Strangely this is an epic fail in every country, but we keep on doing the same thing and hearing the same excuses.
Perhaps it is all the new sedentary jobs in Nigeria that have caused these health problems? The Internet penetration is at about 52%- approximately 97 million people and about 16 million of those are on Facebook. Of course, to think of Nigeria as a poor, backwards country is not only insulting, it is untrue. There is one key technology statistic they lead in. I noticed that they even beat the United States.
Google Trend
If you search for the term ‘ketogenic’ on Google Trends, you see that Nigeria beats all other places in the world. “It must be some mistake,” you say? It is not. While our societies are nauseatingly debating sugar taxes, how to prevent obesity, coming up with ineffective national diabetes strategies and suppressing low carb for greed under a thin veneer of philanthropy, the ladies of Nigeria are transforming their health and the health of their country.
Now the low-carb deniers are probably going to suggest some tin-foil hat conspiracy. Maybe Prof. Tim Noakes has been commuting North every week spreading his vile message? No. It is a grassroots revolution.
In Nigeria, the low-carb diet is best known under the term ‘ketogenic’ diet, and so it has slipped under the radar compared to terms like Paleo, LCHF and Banting.
The Google trend search also shows that adoption has been extremely rapid. From a near standing start, it accelerated in about August of last year. It had the usual January bump that we see in diet trends. What is driving this? No surprises folks. It is because it works and the ladies know it.
Ketogenic Lifestyle
One of the largest groups on Facebook is called “Ketogenic Lifestyle”. It started posting its ketogenic information in August of last year when the surge happened. It has about 316,000 members and has grown very fast. What may surprise you is that this group caters to provide support for Nigerian low-carbers. Almost all of the members are Nigerian, and the majority are women. How the three admins manage a Facebook group with over 300,000 people is probably worthy of a separate post (and a gold medal)!
This group was started by Joy Aghogho whom some of the members refer to as “Aunty Joy”. Joy is exactly what they feel every time a sister, infertile in the past from PCOS, announces their pregnancy. The posts are a procession of advice and information and then beautiful ladies. Beautiful and large before, beautiful and healthier after keto. They know the keto diet is a therapeutic diet that can counter the health scourges of their country (diabesity) as well as PCOS and epilepsy. There is not a dietitian in sight. These are ketogenically educated ladies, and they seem to know it better than most Australian APDs!
The Numbers
Let us just run some numbers for the bureaucrats and CEOs who may happen to come across this health consumer’s blog. 316,000 Nigerian Facebook users can actually be doubled when you consider that their partners are probably eating keto too. That is four percent of the Facebook user population. Given that societies like Nigeria have very dynamic and active personal networks radiating from each user, that figure may well be a good proxy for the penetration of the ketogenic diet into Nigeria itself. This figure is significant as the official rate of diabetes in Nigeria is 5%, and the ketogenic diet normalises and reverses type 2 diabetes and offers type 1s normal blood glucose. There is likely to be a great crossover between the obese and diabetic population (10.3% and 5%) and the ketogenic diet population.
The Implications
So here are some questions and implications for various people from the ketogenic health explosion in Nigeria.
For Government Health Ministers and Health Bureaucrats:
Will Nigeria beat diabesity before your country even considers the right move? It looks like you need to get away from the noisy lobbyists and interest groups and investigate what is happening for health in our own Facebook communities.
For Pharma CEOs:
Nigeria is probably not even a blip on your sales figures, but you now have a duty to your shareholders to inform them of the risk from other country populations adopting low carb- particularly at the rate of growth seen in Nigeria.
For Pharma Shareholders:
Along with the Credit Suisse report, time to reassess your long-term investment unless your CEO has communicated a clear strategy to manage dietary change to low carb.
For Diabetes Not-for-profits:
Are you really committed to innovation to improve the lives of people with diabetes? If not then find another job.
For Food and Drink Industry CEOs:
Time to stop resisting with marketing that will damage your future brand. Consider what your products will be in a low carb future and like pharma executives- consider your projections carefully.
For Food and Drink Company Shareholders:
Along with the Credit Suisse report, time to reassess your long-term investment unless your CEO has communicated a clear strategy.
For Dietitians and their Not-for-profits:
Even if you STILL think this is a diet fad, shame on you to force health consumers to fix themselves via Facebook. Ignoring this health revolution is making you irrelevant.
For the higher carb chronic disease sufferer:
Time to try what these smart Nigerian ladies know.
For the researcher:
Plenty of epidemiological data here about the mass-effect of ketogenic diets on weight loss, POCS, Diabetes and health. Time to pull out your head and head to Abuja or talk nicely to Joy.
For the existing low-carber:
See what the low carb community can do.
Keep calm and keto on with our Nigerian sisters!