On various Television stations, Radio stations and other media across the country, Nigerians are being inundated with advertorials by self styled ‘Doctors’ promoting the efficacy of certain remedies that act as a ‘cure all’. Some of the remedies are touted to improve libido, cure diabetes, cure an enlarged prostate, cancers, warts, help you to lose weight in an almost magical manner and achieve overall good health. Such advertorials also include the ‘testimony’ and other anecdotal reports from individuals who have used such remedies. These ‘testimonies’ serve as very effective tools to convince the unwary that he or she, irrespective of educational status, needs to use such a remedy. The scientific community needs much more proof than what is currently made available in order to know the truth about the safety and efficacy of such remedies.
The presence of such alternative therapies have quite complicated the diabetes treatment landscape, not only by the unproven but highly touted ‘efficacy’ of such therapies but also by the avidity with which numerous individuals with diabetes in and out of Nigeria cling to such therapies. One of the downsides of the use of alternative therapies in Nigeria and elsewhere is the increasing incidence of kidney and liver failure following the use of such alternative therapies. Most times, the practitioners of this form of therapy are very secretive about their products and do not make them available for scientific scrutiny.
Complementary therapy refers to therapeutic and diagnostic disciplines outside conventional medical practice which are used alongside conventional medicine while alternative medicine is used instead of conventional medicine. These two forms of therapy, though around for decades, have gained further ground in Nigeria in the last two decades through widespread and unregulated advertisement.
Individuals with diabetes must be educated about which of such therapies may be of some benefit and those with absolutely no proven value. As evidence becomes available to the scientific community about the efficacy of some of these complementary therapies, they can then be absorbed in into the main diabetes treatment armamentarium.
A whole wide range of complementary therapies are currently available in Nigeria which are expensive, of unproven efficacy, unknown safety profile which are being used by people with diabetes instead of their orthodox/conventional therapy.
It is strongly advised by healthcare practitioners worldwide that instead of individuals with diabetes buying expensive dietary supplements that contain vitamins and other micronutrients, they should invest in eating a very balanced diet and their conventional anti-diabetic agents. Individuals with diabetes who wish to use remedies aside from that prescribed by their healthcare workers are advised to discuss such use with their Doctors.
Majority of the proponents of alternative therapies do not possess strong clinical credentials and often misapply information from scientific literature. A strong case in point is the over celebration of staphylococcus in Nigeria by the combination of outright falsehood and half truths.
It is an incontrovertible fact that a lot of conventional drugs used nowadays to treat diabetes and other diseases are derived from herbs. A vivid example is Metformin which is the most used anti-diabetic drug worldwide which was derived from French lilac plant, a traditional remedy for the disease. The onus is thus on herbal practitioners in Nigeria and elsewhere to make their products available for scientific proof. Before the efficacy and safety of currently used herbal remedies are proven scientifically, one can only advise that such remedies are taken with a pinch of salt.
Orthodox medical practitioners must make it a point of duty to ask individuals with diabetes that they attend to whether they use any form of complementary or alternative therapy, especially in those whose blood sugar level control is poor. At the risk of sounding repetitive, one must again say that the safety of these alternative therapies is a serious cause for concern.
For now, it is still good to keep an open mind about these therapies as they may be proven in the future to be effective and safe, but until then, one will strongly advice that individuals with diabetes stick with their orthodox medications. The burden of scientific proof rests with the practitioners of these therapies.
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