Participants: Don Mackintosh, Allan Handysides
Series Code: HFAL
Program Code: HFAL000099
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00:47 Hello, and welcome to Health For A Lifetime.
00:49 I'm your host Don McIntosh and today we're glad to have 00:51 Dr. Alan Handysides with us from the General Conference 00:54 of Seventh Day Adventists. Welcome doctor! 00:56 Thank you very much! 00:58 You know I'm delighted that you are with us and 01:01 could take the time here with Health For A Lifetime 01:03 because you have such a global perspective. 01:05 One of the things that we talk a lot about here 01:07 on Health For A Lifetime, I've interviewed may guests 01:11 done over 100 or so programs at this point 01:15 and many of the times that we talk about nutrition, 01:19 we talk about it from this narrow view of America or 01:24 Western Europe or the developed countries. 01:27 But you see things from a much larger perspective and today 01:31 we want to look at it from that global perspective. 01:34 Is nutrition an important aspect of world health 01:37 and what do you see it from your bird's eye view there? 01:41 Well, when you consider that there are millions of children 01:46 that go to bed every night with empty tummies 01:48 who are hungry and perhaps complaining of nothing to eat. 01:54 Then it becomes a really major problem because I'm talking now 01:58 not about the niceties of nutrition, but I'm talking about 02:02 the absolute essential of nutrition, that which sustains, 02:07 keeps alive and allows us to live at all. 02:10 Not measuring the degree of quality of that life 02:13 but merely a quantity of life at all. 02:16 So in the world today... Talk about that, 02:21 you're talking about children that say I just haven't had 02:24 anything to eat, and we think about oh, I didn't get to have 02:27 my whatever the little nicety is. 02:29 What is the big, what is the burden in terms of nutrition 02:36 worldwide? I think that it is almost 02:41 a human right to have food. I can't think of anything more 02:47 basic than food, and yet in my own experience it's been 02:54 a tragedy that I've seen sometimes hundreds, 02:57 thousands of children dying of starvation. 03:00 I remember in the late 80's when there were famines 03:04 in Ethiopia going around and feeding maybe 3,000 to 5,000 03:10 children at one sitting, and they would open their 03:14 mouths like little birds as we would pop in a little 03:16 vitamin pill, we would be feeding them a gruel 03:19 which was a concoction of various grains and soybean 03:26 proteins to try to save them from the jaws of death literally 03:30 from the jaws of death. We've seen pictures of starving 03:35 children in likes of Time Magazine to the point 03:39 that we've almost... become jaded, yeah, become jaded, 03:42 we sort of said don't show me another starving child. 03:46 And yet we have the luxury of talking about whether we are 03:50 going to eat a low fat or a no fat, or this kind of fat diet, 03:55 and there are children who are just starving. 03:59 It's probably pointed out, I used to say to my kid now eat 04:02 the food up, clean your plate, there's millions of children 04:07 starving, you know and the kid would give you the 04:09 quick response, well name one. 04:11 My own kid would do that for me, it sort of sounds... 04:15 you know, they think it's cool to be able to sort of catch 04:17 their parents out, but it's a sign of how far we are 04:21 removed from the reality of malnutrition in the world. 04:25 So per day, thousands of people die from starvation? 04:29 You know I don't have statistics right at my fingertips 04:32 and I should have had that today when I come to talk 04:34 about this. But there are thousands of children dying 04:37 of starvation and when you add the malnourishment 04:41 that they have to all the other illnesses, 04:45 the complexity of illnesses, it becomes a really foundational 04:49 deficiency, the foundation just isn't there to survive 04:53 to fight against the diarrhea's, to fight against the 04:57 tuberculosis, to fight the parasitic diseases, 05:00 to even withstand HIV, you know a child born HIV 05:05 infected is only going to live three or four years in Africa. 05:08 So all these things, if you don't have anything to 05:12 base it on, don't have basic food you are in trouble. 05:15 Talk about that a little bit, I mean if you don't have food 05:18 you are not going to be able to develop physically 05:21 what are the things that you are going to... 05:23 Take an African child, born in an African village, 05:26 he's going to be brought up depending on the affluence of 05:31 his family. He is going to be brought up with brothers 05:34 and sisters usually. By the time the mother gets 05:38 pregnant again, which is by the time he is about a year of age, 05:41 because that is roughly the time it will take, 05:43 she'll get pregnant again and by the time he is 21 months 05:47 22 months old, a new baby appears. 05:50 He is walking, but he is still being very much dependent 05:54 on his mother's milk, now the mother's milk is diverted 05:56 to the new baby, and we see classically in that group 06:01 a condition called kwashiorkor, now that is hard to pronounce 06:05 don't try it if you... Kwashiorkor! 06:07 Kwashiorkor! Kwashiorkor! 06:09 Kwashiorkor is protein calorie malnutrition that just isn't 06:14 enough for instance tyrosine in the protein content of the 06:20 food and these children, their little black children remember, 06:23 they get orange hair because there isn't enough protein 06:26 to form the melanin to make that beautiful jet black 06:30 shiny hair that we are so used to seeing on a healthy child. 06:33 They develop a little pot belly because the muscle tone is 06:36 so poor and their gut is gassy because it is poorly... 06:40 it doesn't have enough absorptive capacity 06:43 so they are not absorbing that little bit that they have 06:46 as well as they could. 06:47 Their protein, the albumin in their blood decreases, 06:50 so they start to get swelling around their ankles. 06:54 They're sick little objects of abject misery, 06:59 just poor lethargic little children. 07:03 Now this is having an effect on their development, 07:06 you take a normal 2 year old, we say oh, terrible two's 07:09 their into everything, they are going like they are gung-ho, 07:12 imagination, all that learning, the input, the sensory input 07:18 it's coming into that brain, and yet these poor little kids 07:22 are sitting there, and it's been documented that this 07:25 malnutrition leads to a delay in the development, 07:30 a delay in the cognitive development, 07:32 sensory development of these children. 07:34 So it becomes as it were a shackle around them 07:37 for the rest of their life. 07:38 Isn't it true like the first three years in one of your 07:41 specialties is Pediatrics and then mother/child type things? 07:46 Isn't it true that the first three years are really 07:49 foundational in terms of nutrition? 07:50 Foundational for nutrition, cognitive development, 07:55 physical development, adaptive behavior, 07:57 I mean we even measure the head size of the kid you know 08:00 it reaches 4/5 of the adult size before the time the child's 08:03 two and a half years old, so the growth of the central 08:06 nervous system, it's all there in those first two and a half, 08:10 three years, and yet if we have deficiencies 08:13 be they protein calorie, be they iodine deficiency, 08:18 it's probably 900,000 people with goiters and 08:23 iodine deficiency, borderline mental function because 08:27 of iodine deficiency. These are major problems in the world. 08:31 Well these kinds of things just overwhelm me to hear 08:34 about, but what can someone sitting in my chair with my 08:39 perspective I think what kind of things can you do 08:41 to even impact that? 08:43 Well I think that one of the things that we can do is 08:48 support those agencies that are involved in helping 08:54 in these countries. The agencies are through the United Nations 08:58 we've got UNICEF, Save the Children, 09:00 we've got non governmental agencies, church group agencies. 09:07 I think about our own church our Seventh-day Adventist Church 09:11 we have situated throughout the world multiple, multiple 09:17 outposts, one through ADRA, which is the Adventist 09:21 Development and Relief Agency and the other through 09:24 the private hospitals of the church and through the 09:28 clinics of the church and the self supporting missions 09:31 of the church. All of these agencies are out there 09:34 doing their part to battle against malnutrition 09:39 And the way that we battle against malnutrition is through 09:41 is education, we are very eager to train agricultural 09:46 techniques, so that they can grow their own food 09:49 so they can become self sufficient. 09:51 Also an education as to the value of different foods, 09:55 you want to be sure that people make the best use 10:01 of limited resources. Sometimes it's a pity to see 10:05 Coke a Cola as proliferated into some of these countries 10:09 and they would rather buy a bottle of Coke a Cola than 10:12 they would buy a load of whole wheat bread. 10:14 Or they might take an egg or something that would have 10:18 a value to it other than... Empty calories. 10:22 A few teaspoonfuls of sugar, and so we need to educate 10:26 as to what are the nutritional basics, a basic understanding 10:30 of nutrition. I think we have some pictures 10:32 from the Adventist Development Relief Agency, 10:34 we want to look at a couple of those. 10:36 Right here, the first one, why don't you help us 10:38 with this one? Well look at this person here 10:41 this is an individual who is clearly malnourished. 10:44 Very very thin, a young person, look at the face, 10:48 the anxious look on that child's face, 10:52 none of us really worry where our next meal is coming from. 10:57 Sometimes these children are scavengers on refuse dumps, 11:02 sometimes they are picking up a little piece here or a 11:04 little piece there. We have the luxury of saying 11:06 I wonder if my diet is balanced, I wonder if I got enough 11:10 vitamin B-12 today. Now my Calcium requirements are 11:13 1,200 mg of Calcium a day. Do you think that that person 11:16 is worried about any of those milligram percentages, 11:19 he's just worried, is there going to be something to eat? 11:22 Probably he has never had a thought of those things 11:24 but just the look I see is there is just one of 11:27 can I make it through? 11:28 Will I make it through the day? 11:30 And who are you that is taking this picture of me, 11:32 can you help me? Yeah, what are you doing here? 11:35 And what are we doing there? See, that's the question we 11:39 have to ask ourselves. What are we doing there? 11:42 And really we are supposed to be there to represent Jesus. 11:47 When Jesus saw the multitude he had compassion upon them, 11:52 he says to His disciples set them down I'm going to feed them 11:56 and they looked at Him like what is this, 11:58 what kind of ministry is this? Yet He broke the bread 12:03 He took the little fishes and broke it up and He gave it 12:06 to them. He used what was available, 12:09 He used what was optimal at the time, 12:12 and he used it to the greatest advantage, 12:15 because he was blessed of the Lord. 12:18 And our endeavors for people if they are done in love 12:21 will be blessed of the Lord. 12:23 So I am a great believer in the non-governmental organization 12:26 and especially faith based initiatives in this area. 12:29 So getting involved with your local church, local community 12:33 however they are supporting these developing countries 12:36 and being aware yourself, you should educate maybe 12:39 your children, your family, and the people that hey 12:42 you know there is a need to maybe sacrifice on this end 12:47 so you can give more to help others that don't have anything. 12:49 That's right! And maybe to talk to our politicians, 12:56 to talk to our representatives in government that it's 13:02 it's not only on issues of economics and trade 13:04 that we are concerned, but that we are also concerned 13:08 on these issues of equity, justice, and health for all. 13:13 I think if we as a people can do that, we exert a gentle 13:17 but subtle and definite pressure on our government 13:20 representatives. 13:22 We're talking with Dr. Alan Handysides, 13:24 he is the health and temperance leader of the 13:26 Seventh-day Adventist Church. He's a physician that has 13:29 traveled around the world, we're talking about nutrition 13:32 from a global perspective and he has given us some good 13:35 council about how we can become involved. 13:37 Join us when we come back. 13:45 Have you found yourself wishing that you could shed 13:48 a few pounds, have you been on a diet most of your life, 13:51 but not found anything that will really keep the weight off? 13:54 If you've answered yes to any of these questions 13:57 then we have a solution for you that works. 13:59 Dr. Hans Diehl and Dr. Aileen Ludington 14:02 have written a marvelous booklet called 14:05 Reversing Obesity Naturally, and we would like to 14:08 send it to you free of charge. 14:09 Here's a medically sound approach successfully used 14:12 by thousands who were able to eat more and loose weight 14:16 permanently without feeling guilty or hungry 14:18 through lifestyles. Dr. Diehl and Dr. Ludington 14:22 have been featured on 3ABN and in this booklet 14:25 they present a sensible approach to eating, nutrition, 14:28 and lifestyle changes that can help you prevent heart disease, 14:31 diabetes and even cancer. 14:33 Call or write today for your free copy of 14:35 Reversing Obesity Naturally and you could be on your way 14:38 to a healthier, happier, you. It's absolutely free of charge, 14:42 so call or write today. 14:46 Welcome back, we're with Dr. Alan Handysides 14:51 He is the head physician for the Seventh-day Adventist Church 14:54 and World Health and Temperance Department. 14:56 And you have that global perspective we are talking about 14:59 nutrition, malnutrition, really we been talking about 15:02 mostly and a huge problem with starvation 15:05 with all these different types of things around the world 15:08 from that perspective that you see there and how we can 15:10 be involved. But can we have malnutrition 15:13 ia a country that is known for it's over abundance? 15:17 We certainly can and we certainly do, mal means bad, 15:23 or poor, bad is probably good, bad nutrition 15:27 so malnutrition is very prevalent here in the states 15:31 as well. Of course it is not a deficiency, 15:33 it's an overabundance. In fact I read a statistic 15:38 that said 58% of women are overweight and that more than 15:45 35% of them are obese in the USA. 15:49 Of course the context of what I was reading was to do with 15:53 the wave of type 2 diabetes that's sweeping the country. 15:58 But overweight is certainly a problem and it's because 16:03 of our diet which is so heavily laced with fat. 16:06 Forty percent of the calories that the average American 16:09 takes in comes from fat, and if we were to look at the 16:14 recommendations that are made even by our own 16:17 government agencies and government health organizations 16:21 we'd find that that was down to... should recommend 16:24 that it was down to between 25- 30%, and there are folks 16:27 amongst us who would even recommend even less. 16:30 So you can see where we are consuming far to much fat 16:34 probably in fast foods and... because we like the taste of it, 16:39 but it's a slippery slope that we are sliding down 16:42 to poor health, to poor heart health, diabetes, 16:47 all manner of problems, hypertension, 16:50 insulin resistance, the whole picture of that, 16:55 we're slipping into that with our obesity. 17:00 So they say that what was it 58% of the women in America 17:03 are overweight, and the other 30% are obese. 17:09 Now you calculate that with the body mass index, 17:11 for the listeners, the body mass index can be calculated 17:17 by taking your weight in kilograms and dividing it 17:25 it by your height in meters squared so it's a little 17:28 difficult but if you wrote that down, 17:29 you weight in kilograms divided by your height squared. 17:34 Now when you do that if you have...it should come out 17:38 probably between, if you are ideal about 22- 25, 17:43 when you get above 25, 25- 28 you are tending to be 17:48 overweight, by the time you get over 30 you are obese, 17:52 if the body mass index is over 30 you are definitely obese. 17:56 So you can forgo some things and help world starvation. 18:00 Wouldn't it be great, wouldn't it be just great 18:03 if we could transfer some of it from here over there. 18:05 Let's go back to the other side of the picture, 18:07 you know many times on the television here or 18:10 from time to time, probably not as often as we should, 18:13 we see relief efforts where planes have gone over to Somalia 18:16 and were loading huge bags of grain, or this or that, 18:20 relief packages. What should be in those packages, 18:24 should we have more meat in those packages, 18:26 or different things, what should we put in those packages? 18:29 Well of course if we were to put in meat we would be 18:33 woefully misdirecting our energies wouldn't we. 18:36 We can get 18 times more protein from vegetable sources 18:42 from a given acre of land than we do meat if we bring it 18:47 the beef chain. So we would normally like to say 18:51 well it would be better to take that in the form of grain 18:55 legumes, like beans, particularly soy beans are good, 19:00 although we have to be sure that they know how to use 19:03 the soy beans. I am always reminded of that 19:05 US-AID Care Package that was sent some forlorn looking guy 19:13 and they were a box of Snickers and the guy had that look 19:16 on his face, what am I supposed to do with this. 19:18 We have to send things that are appropriate to the country 19:22 we can't send something that they have never seen or 19:24 don't know how to handle it. Don't know how to use. Yea! 19:26 So there needs to be education that goes along with it? 19:28 That's right. Yes! Now talking about under 19:31 nutrition, is there like a single factor that we should 19:34 be addressing when we talk about under nutrition globally? 19:37 It would be nice if there was one single factor, 19:41 if there were one single factor we could address it, 19:44 but it's a multi-faceted problem this under nutrition. 19:50 Poverty certainly ranks in there as a very important... 19:54 Have-not's! Have-not's! Yeah! 19:56 Then we have to think about government policy, 19:58 government policies in some of these countries are such 20:02 that they don't encourage the transportation of food. 20:09 We have to think about the roll of men and women 20:13 and the status of women. Sometimes the rolls that 20:17 we keep women into don't allow them to be able to be 20:22 producing say food, if we are sending them 5 hours carrying 20:26 water for five hours, they don't have the time or the energy 20:33 to take care of other things. 20:36 And then as developing nation we need to look at the 20:41 massive indebtedness of the third world. 20:43 I really...you know I'm a believer in hard work 20:49 and reaping what you sow, but sometimes we have to 20:53 look at the indebtedness that we have saddled the 20:56 third world with and say are we not just enslaving them 21:00 with debt in a pit, in a morass from which 21:03 they will never get out? 21:05 So get them started, education and all those different 21:07 kind of things and then they will be pulling their own 21:10 to at some point. That's right! 21:12 Of course corruption in government is there, 21:14 there are so many factors, it's a multifactoral problem. 21:19 Um, I want to show another picture here from the 21:21 Adventist Disaster Relief Agency that we have of some 21:25 things being delivered and I suppose these are relief 21:28 packages that are filled with what doyou suppose? 21:31 Well, they may be filled with bulgur wheat, 21:34 wheat is often sent to these developing countries, 21:39 it could be that it is filled with milk powder, 21:43 skim milk powder which is a good source of protein. 21:46 The problem with that is so many Africans are 21:49 lactose intolerant, and I remember... 21:52 So we have another problem. In my early days I said oh, 21:55 we we're just going to make all the porridge with the milk it'll 21:57 ...Then they'll all have diarrhea, 21:59 so then I learned very quickly that you can't just impose 22:04 solutions sometimes. But I would suspect that 22:06 they are the Bulgur wheat or maybe a soy flour preparation 22:11 that can be used. And ADRA does a lot of this, 22:13 I noticed there's a big response there a lot of people 22:15 that are coming, they are lining up, they do see value 22:18 in it. But they probably do this around the world but 22:21 how, like you're saying do you drop off a big bag 22:25 of something that maybe they are not used to 22:27 maybe they wouldn't know how to prepare it, 22:30 did they educate them along with it? 22:32 They would educate them on how to use that. 22:34 This is the relief part of ADRA's name, 22:38 remember the development part - is developing the 22:42 infrastructure, -is to teach a man to catch a fish, 22:44 he fishes forever, you give him a fish to eat, 22:46 he eats it in one day. 22:48 So the development part is such and important aspect 22:53 of this work. 22:56 And in your work then you see kind of diagnosing the problem 22:59 in some ways, but this particular arm of the church 23:02 comes in and picks up some of those parts that need to be 23:06 carried through, water or food or... 23:09 Yes we see our hospitals primarily as our treatment 23:13 centers, but secondary and vitally secondary, 23:18 they must be educational centers, and if they are not 23:21 they are failing in their mandate. 23:23 They are to teach in their region, teach the people to 23:27 grow good foods, to eat better foods, to make better use 23:31 of what's available. 23:33 We're not so worried about talking about saturated 23:36 and unsaturated fats in this type of context, 23:39 but we are interested in talking about sufficient 23:42 calories, and the balance and the variety and 23:46 making full use of that which is available 23:49 not selling the beans to make a few bucks, 23:52 but eating the beans to give them a better quality of life, 23:55 to use the fruit that is growing on the trees. 23:57 To plant fruit trees, take care of their children, 24:01 these are important, important things to teach. 24:04 As a physician you worked a lot with children, 24:06 as a Pediatrician and then also with women's health issues 24:11 and I don't know if this is a fair question on not 24:13 but when we are talking, many times when we talk about 24:17 starvation and these types of things probably nothing 24:20 would touch the heart more than talking about 24:22 mother's and children. Do you have any special concerns 24:24 concerning for instance pregnant women we've talked 24:28 about children. I am so pleased that you asked 24:29 that question because on a question like this, 24:32 it's being shown that Folic Acid, which is the vitamin 24:36 found in green leafy vegetables, it's a B-Complex vitamin, 24:40 that when that vitamin is not present, 24:43 the development of the baby may be wrong, it may be poor 24:47 and you may get problems. 24:49 So we need to encourage the use of green leafy vegetables, 24:53 dark green leafy vegetables by all pregnant mothers. 24:56 I'm reminded where is says there is Psalm, 24:58 I think it is 119, where David said, You knew me when I was 25:04 in my mother's womb. 25:05 You saw me when I was fearfully and curiously wrought. 25:09 I always like to think of the embryological twistings 25:12 and turnings that were taking place, and David obviously 25:15 knew about those sort of things, maybe he saw them in the sheep 25:17 or something. He said you knew me when I was 25:19 curiously made. The Lord in His love, watch care over us 25:25 extends His compassion right into the womb, 25:27 and we want to do that too by having good diets, 25:31 Iron, Folic Acid, Protein, adequate calories so that 25:35 these babies can from the very conception and inception 25:39 of their life, they can grow properly. 25:42 So green leafy vegetables, you know when I was 25:45 taking State Board Examinations, this was many years ago 25:48 for nursing, I knew that that was one of the choices I had 25:52 on my multiple choice if I put that I would always be right. 25:54 You can't go wrong with green leafy vegetables. 25:57 We've got about two minutes left and I want to talk about 26:00 ask you a question about Human Rights as it relates to 26:04 under nutrition and then maybe the spiritual aspects 26:08 of this from your perspective and from where you are trying 26:11 to impact change. 26:13 Would you care to comment on that as we close? 26:15 Well, I think we mentioned human rights, 26:18 we did touch on food as being a basic human rights, 26:22 and I think as individuals, it was Cain, he killed Able 26:30 his brother and God said his blood is crying out to me. 26:36 And Cain's response was, am I my brother's keeper? 26:39 And I think that we are in danger sometimes of feasting 26:45 off the land and not being worried about others. 26:49 I think God made us all of one flesh, 26:52 we are all made of one blood, He loves us all just the same. 26:57 and if we are to be His son's and His daughter's, 27:00 we will be our brother's keepers. 27:02 We will have concern, and we will see to it that we nurture 27:08 the rights of children to food and nourishment, 27:13 clothing and shelter, these are very basic human rights. 27:18 So we need to be thinking about ways we can get involved now. 27:21 We need to be thinking how to get involved... 27:23 When that mission offering comes around, when that 27:25 Adventist Disaster Relief offering or whatever the 27:28 churches that you are involved in or network to get involved 27:32 and say hey, I want to be involved in that. 27:35 The Good Book says, it is more blessed to give than receive. 27:40 and I would like for our listeners to receive 27:44 that blessing. We've been talking with 27:46 Dr. Alan Handysides, we've been talking about 27:49 world nutrition, and we hope that today's program will be 27:53 a blessing to you. We are thankful for 27:55 Adventist Development Relief Agency and the pictures they 27:58 provided for today. |
Revised 2014-12-17