Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Saturday called for a national campaign for motivating people to adopt a healthy lifestyle, avoid sedentary living and junk food, in view of growing incidences of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in the country.
The World Health Organisation data has attributed 61 per cent of all deaths in the country to NCDs like cancer, diabetes and blood pressure, he noted.
“We need to go for a massive national campaign for change of life style. Also food habits.. Our forefathers who lived for thousands of years have given us wonderful food. What is lacking in India? All varieties… for all seasons with all reasons,” Naidu said during his address at the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD) here.
Sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy food habits are linked to the increased incidence of NCDs in the country, he added. Naidu claimed that 98 per cent of rural people are not affected by the Covid-19 due to a healthy lifestyle and living close to nature.
Observing that nature has been kind to India in the form of abundant sunlight and air, he regretted that they are not being taken advantage of, leading to the occurrence of various diseases.
He urged the scientists to create awareness among people on making healthy choices. The Vice President also stressed the need to promote organic farming, revisit our traditional food habits and promote the consumption of protein-rich food for better health outcomes.
Cautioning against the fad for instant food, he quipped “instant food means constant disease.”
Naidu, who inaugurated Pediatric Rare Genetic Disorders laboratory at the CDFD, asked the scientists to continue to work to develop simpler and cost-effective methods for diagnosis of various genetic diseases to help in better patient management.
He lauded CDFD scientists for identifying novel genetic mutations for more than 10 disorders in India, including the identification of four new genes, which would be helpful in genetic counseling and management of diseases.
He asked CDFD to create awareness among the people through media on the services it was offering on genetic diseases.
Referring to the unprecedented challenges faced by humankind in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic, he commended CDFD’s Corona Warriors for providing accurate diagnosis of the viral infection.
Pointing to the problem of increased crime rate in the world, he lauded CDFD for providing state of the art DNA fingerprinting service to courts, judiciary, National Investigating Agency (NIA) and CBI for ensuring correct judgment in criminal cases, and in providing relief to the families of disaster victims.
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This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.