[Nairobi streets]
[Ahmed Kalebi working on his laptop]
Ahmed Kalebi (interview): “Am I worried about metabolic liver disease being a silent epidemic? I am not just worried, I know, because we see it on a daily basis. The number of cases that we pick silently when people come for health check-ups is shocking, and we actually need to do a lot more to increase awareness for people to come for screening and a change of lifestyle. If we don’t, we will be paying a huge price in the next decade to two decades, and that is why 2050 is seen as the culmination of when there will be an explosion of this liver disease-associated cancer.”
[Kalebi looking at a cancer screening]
Professor Hashem El-Serag (interview): “The public perception has at least two major deficits. First, the gravity of liver cancer as a global entity. I don’t think it has reached the public health perception such as other cancers, like colon cancer or lung cancer. And this report points out the sheer magnitude of this burden, reaching well above a million people every year by 2050.”
[Kalebi and scientists in a lab]
Ahmed Kalebi (interview): “Most people literally don’t even think about their liver. They don’t even know they have a liver, so if people don’t think about it, if they are not conscious about it, they will not be able to take preventive action. I think that is the first step. ”
[Kalebi and scientists in a lab]
Ahmed Kalebi (interview): “When you have obesity, when you have hypercholesterolemia, because of high cholesterol and diabetes, if it is damaging the kidney, it will show as a form of hepatitis. That is the only way you can diagnose it early. You can’t diagnose it any other way. Otherwise, it will be too late. By the time you are getting the obvious liver disease, it is irreversible. By the time you are getting liver cancer, it is irreversible.”
[Kalebi and scientists in a lab]
Ahmed Kalebi (interview): “Metabolic liver disease or metabolic symptoms in general is actually becoming a poor man’s disease because the people who are poor are the most affected by poor diet because they are taking unhealthy foods. So unhealthy foods are actually becoming a bigger problem among the poor in the third world, in the rural areas, because they are not aware. So somebody takes Fanta and Coke with bread for lunch, which is very unhealthy. It used to be seen that these kinds of foods are a sign of affluence. It used to be seen that a pot belly or weight is a sign of affluence. It is actually the other way round. We need to change that narrative.”
[Scientists in a lab]
Professor Hashem El-Serag (interview): “Africa is also not immune to the obesity epidemic with the progressive westernization of their lifestyle and their diets. So they might be hit with multiple risk factors. A leftover from the old risk factors that really are not moving fast enough. And the emergence of the new risk factors that are happening as a result of globalization.”
This script was provided by The Associated Press.