[File Photo]

More young people in Vanua Levu are now suffering from serious health problems like kidney failure, diabetes, and heart disease, says Labasa Hospital Acting Medical Superintendent Dr Mikaele Mua.

During a recent handover of dialysis machines at the Northern Dialysis Centre, Dr Mua revealed that the youngest patient currently on dialysis is just over 30 -years -old.

He says in the past, dialysis was mostly needed by elderly patients, but now more young people are requiring the treatment.

Dr Mikaele Mua (left) during the handover of dialysis machines at the Northern Dialysis Centre [Source: Labasa Football/Facebook]

Dr Mua attributed the rise in early-stage kidney failure and other serious complications, such as heart attacks, to poor dietary habits, fast food consumption, and increasingly sedentary lifestyles.

“Our diet plays a major role in what we are seeing now. What we are seeing in our cardiac lab, in our coronary care unit, we are seeing younger patients who are coming in with cardiac issues, with MI, myocardial infarction. Before, what we used to see is that elderly above 50, history of smoking, those are the risks. But now, patients are getting younger, 40- years- old, 30- years- old, suffering from heart attacks. And when we take their history, most of them never smoked.”

During a recent medical visit to Rabi Island, doctors found dangerously high blood sugar levels in children, with some as young as five showing early signs of diabetes.

Dr Mua warns that without lifestyle changes, more young people will continue to suffer from these preventable diseases.

“Younger age group getting contracted with NCDs. And it all goes back to the recent lifestyle. Our lifestyle. It’s the lifestyle issues that we really need to strengthen on.”

Dr Mua is urging the public to take lifestyle changes seriously, stressing the urgent need to return to traditional diets, increase physical activity, and reduce reliance on processed and fast foods.

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