DEPUTY Chief Medical Officer (DCMO), Dr Karen Boyle, is calling on food manufacturers and producers to exercise effective control over food additives, residues and contaminants.
While food additives are used to preserve nutritional quality, enhance stability, maintain attractiveness and assist in the processing of food, it is a reasonable requirement that for such additives permitted to be used, there should be a large margin of safety.
Boyle, at a recent forum, said genetically modified products are usually cheaper and sold in poor neighbourhoods.
“A balance must be reached between meeting the demand for produce that look better and almost never rot and those that are organic and therefore smaller and less attractive. The challenge then becomes, that the poor can only afford genetically modified products and the rich are the ones who actually have access to the organic foods and that in itself causes disparities in health, because it means the poor is [sic] going to be exposed to unhealthy foods more and only the rich will be able to afford the healthy foods,” Boyle explained.
While this is not quite the case in Guyana, Boyle said Guyanese are in the habit of consuming diets that are unhealthy and participating in sedentary lifestyles.

SEDENTARY LIFESTYLES
A sedentary lifestyle is a type of lifestyle with little or no physical activity. A person living a sedentary lifestyle is often sitting, lying, while reading, socialising, watching television, playing video games, or using mobile phone/computer for much of the day.
High Fructose (corn syrup) is the main ingredient in most soft drinks throughout the world. It is added to many fast foods because it is cheaper than sugar and much sweeter.
“When you drink a bottle of soft drink, you already take care of more than your requirement of sugar for the day, that’s for the ordinary person who has a sedentary lifestyle. For a person holding a normal office job, one bottle of soft drink means you shouldn’t be using any more sugar for the rest of the day,” the DCMO explained.
In the 1970s, most food and drug manufactures switch to fructose corn syrup which drastically altered Americans’ and now the world’s diet. High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is said to be 10 times sweeter than table sugar.
Dr Boyle said, “the problem with insulin levels — when you use these high sugars, that you find in fructose corn syrup the body takes care of sugar with insulin, so when you have a lot of sugar circulating in your body the insulin levels in your body rise up to try and get rid of all the sugars.”
Fructose corn syrup is very quickly converted to fat after consumption. This insulin is left circulating in the body which can cause a person’s sugar level to suddenly plummet, causing a person’s body to crash.

MUST AVOID
“One should avoid using too much food that can cause spiking of insulin, because it’s going to make you hungry soon after and it’s going to make you eat again which leads to overeating and that whole cycle of obesity and risk for diabetes and other chronic diseases,” Boyle emphasised.
Science has also found that fructose does not only cause a spike in insulin, but it also raises the level of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, raises levels of triglycerides (fat), and contributes to diabetes, heart disease and obesity.
The DCMO said she is optimistic that Guyana will move to require that the food industry include on their menu the caloric intake or the choleric value of the foods they manufacture and sell.
“I am not saying we should ban these foods, but the consumer who is educated will know or recognise the need to monitor your portion control and how often you use these foods.” These should be a treat and not a regular something you consume,” Boyle pointed out.
Boyle is also hopeful that the Ministry of Public Health will consider adopting the traffic light system of labelling which has already been adopted by countries such as Peru and Nicaragua and was endorsed by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The traffic light system of labelling foods, is a simple code that allows the consumer with the least time or the least education to be able to equally determine foods that are healthy and those that are high in fat, salts, sugar or corn syrup.

Boyle believes that adopting such a system will require manufacturers and importers to use this system of labelling, which makes it so much easier for the ordinary housewife to choose foods that are healthy for her family.
Some foods that are high in fructose corn syrup includes soft drinks, candy, sweetened yogurt, salad dressing, canned fruit, juice, granola bars, breakfast cereal, store-bought baked goods, sauces and condiments and snack foods (processed foods such as chips, cookies and crackers).
Chronic diseases are the top causes of death in Guyana, and the treatment of these diseases consumes over 70 per cent of the Ministry of Public Health budget. A total of $21.5B was approved for the Public Health Sector for 2017, of which $2.025B was allocated for disease control. The Ministry of Public Health, through its Chronic Disease Department, is on a race in taking action and measures to reverse the epidemic of overweight and obesity, and to prevent diabetes, cancers and cardiovascular diseases.