Ghanaian Prostate Cancer Doctor on a Mission in Nigeria

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by Afedi Ayore, Nigeria

Dr. Nyarkotey Providing Training and screening to the Men at the Comforter Gospel Assembly, Ikorodu

Dr. Raphael Nyarkotey Obu is one of the Doctors Holistic Medicine and Men’s Health outdoors. He is a well known figure in the crusade against Prostate cancer. He is a genius in the field of prostate cancer and it is an area where he could debate you without stress. He is the President of Cancer Voices Ghana, Alternative Medical Association of Ghana and Men’s Health Foundation Ghana.

Dr. Nyarkotey is currently in Nigeria raising awareness of prostate cancer, meeting the people who matters in the area of health including politicians to help address the prostate cancer situation in Nigeria under the invitation of Optimum Health and Wellness for Men [ads1]foundation. The Nigeria project is under the auspices of Professor Bishop Rufus A. Oguntuase, a very well known figure in Nigeria.

Accordingly, Dr. Nyarkotey said at the Comforter Gospel Assembly International Church in Nigeria that at very tender age, his very responsible Dad used to put up a mantra that he won’t die like the worm but he will die the death of a millipede.

Yes, what we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others live on forever. The end of a matter is better than its beginning. How we die matters to the world. Our lives are found on purpose. Our daily efforts must draw us a step closer to that great purpose we carry.

My aim is to transform and change the cancer situation in Africa. He says.

“I am a man on a mission to stop prostate cancer before it strikes in the black community” he said. My role as a specialist in prostate cancer and a researcher   is to provide an invaluable service to patients of diverse backgrounds and beliefs using holistic and conventional   medicine.  Also  as  a  policy  maker,  I  want  to  use  ‘Medical  Politics’  to  influence  decisions  in  Government  for  total  holistic  healings  in  health  care.  I want  to  see  a  continent   where  cancer  treatment  is  not  luxury,  a  continent   where  there  is  national recognition of all cancers as a major health challenge and policies to address it.

On Prostate Cancer

According to him, Very often you find elderly male patients in Ghana above 40years complaining of a feeble urinary stream, hesitancy, dribbling, having to urinate frequently and urgently, feeling that they can’t empty their bladder completely and loss of libido.

These observations are usually on the increase whilst little or no effort is made to raise awareness for early detection and treatment. Eventually in Ghana, persons who retire with prostate problems spend a significant amount of their time and money on care that may be terminal or more expensive

Dr. Nyarkotey however said, this challenge in the fight against prostate cancer is a marathon, not a 100 meters, and if we’re going to beat it we need to break down the taboos and start talking. As a researcher, I had always thought that my health has always been important to me. When I was in the prime of my career, it was the most important thing. I was conscious of my diet and keeping myself in shape. I had to; other than a pair of running spikes, my physical and mental fitness was all I had – my career depended on it. Unbeatable; indestructible; that’s what I wanted to be, and I believed I was.

As am still aging and researching into the disease, my diet is still vital, but I’ve come to realize that no matter how well I eat or how fit I am, I am not indestructible – nobody is including Vegetarians. But aside that there are defense measures I  can take and arming myself with knowledge is by far the most important

Cancer is a word, not a sentence. Cancer is a verb in black community, not a noun. Time is shortening. But every day I challenge this cancer to find its causes and potential cure using diverse modalities and survival for patients with better national policies and ultimate victory for me.

I realized that you beat cancer by how you live, where you live and in the manner in which you live and as I research this I realized that there is something we can learn from the elephant.  The elephant never get cancer.

Dr. Nyarkotey with some Political Leaders in Nigeria

On cancer Treatment

According to Dr. Nyarkotey, Prostate cancer treatment is a choice and diverse treatment modalities available to the patient.  “You have to be proactive on your treatment choice based on the stage of the cancer. There are both conventional ones, surgery, Brachytherapy, Hormonal treatment, chemotherapy etc”

He further said, Prostate Cancer is a very cunning, easygoing disease in black men. To defeat it, we need a new and powerful mode of attack in dealing with black men when diagnosed with the disease.  Especially the ones that come back over and over again, the highly invasive and drug-resistant ones, the ones that disobey conventional medical treatment, even when we throw our best drugs at them.

“As a clever disease, there are some forms of cancer, which, fortunately, we’ve learned how to address relatively well with known and established drugs and surgery. But there are some forms of cancer that don’t respond to these approaches, and the tumor survives or comes back, even after an onslaught of drugs. To deal with this we must find out how our body works-black men!

We can think of these very aggressive forms of cancer in black men as kind of super villains in a funny manuscript. The best supervillains don’t just fight superheroes. They hold up a mirror, presenting a tantalizing vision of a super-id unleashed. No wonder we love the bad guys so much: They get to do everything that the good guys would never let us do.

They’re clever, they’re adaptable, and they’re very good at staying alive.

So, we have a supervillain with incredible superpowers. So to fight this disease Physicians, charities and researchers must have open mind and use diverse angles to fight it.  It is like casting out demons in human. The preacher man needs high authority to do this anything apart from this could spell doom to the Preacher man.”

Can we prevent this?

Yes. It is possible he said using his experience from his Jungle Effect research in Bolgatanga, Ghana. According to him, the Bolgatanga case study has the life-changing answers to these important questions, and many more. The men in Bolgatanga have excellent prostate health after he conducted a testing program there. “Whether it’s the heart-healthy Bolgatanga diet, with its reliance on guinea fowl and others and it’s extremely high levels of omega-3s, the age-defying Bolgatanga diet and its emphasis on leaves, free range guinea fowl local chicken, cow and fish, or the other diets explored herein. Surprisingly, the clubs are fully packed and people blow alcohol yet they don’t get boozed easily this I realized partly because of the effect of the sun.

Bolgatanga free range Guinea Fowls provide a high dose of protein and all essential amino acids, good dose of vitamin A, vitamin B6 or pyridoxine, calcium, copper, iron in the form of heme, naicin or vitamin B3, phosphorus, potassium, tryptophan, zinc, and 60 to 75 mg of cholesterol. In Bolgatanga, surprisingly, cows are everywhere and also in their menu but these cows are free range ones likewise their chicken.Inherited Weaknesses and Disposition- Is prostate cancer genetic Disease?

Dr. Nyarkotey said, Cancer is often misunderstood by even the most respected medical professionals in the world. This is because some even believed that people get cancer like the same way they would catch cold or bacterial infection. But in reality, every cell has the ability to be cancerous, and a variety of factors can prompt a cell to do so. And while most Oncologists (and even leading cancer associations) consider cancer a genetic disease, I realized that this is not entirely true.

“Cancer, therefore, occurs when genes within a cell lose their ability to regulate that cell’s growth. These disobedient cells don’t know how to stop multiplying or die. But all cells have the potential to lose this ability, meaning any cell can cancer at any time, depending on the environment it finds itself!

I know people may be wondering and asking if cancer is unavoidable? No. The choice to die without disease is ours to make, right now. But trying to live our entire life cancer-free seems like a pretty formidable goal.

Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached the visible size”.

He provided a typical example of how the health of our parents affects us. “When we are born, we came into the world with a unique gift from our parents. We inherit a constitution, our basic fundamental health core, which combines the DNA of both parents. The quality of their health determines our health foundation. You can have a strong constitution or a weak one and everything in between.

We see this in people all the time. Some are gifted with strong healthy physiques and constitution while others are less well-off and must fight for their health.

The quality of the food and lifestyle and stress conditions of our mothers while we were in the womb thus plays a big part in our overall health. These factors are major in determining our constitution: whether we are blessed with a gift or burdened with a challenge.

Our day-to-day diets and habits determine our health condition. If you combine a weak constitution with weak health conditions created by our choices as we move onwards in life, then you have a ripe combination for many diseases and often very serious ones. This is especially true for prostate diseases because of the accumulation of toxins in the prostate.

Take the strong constitution type who seems to never get sick and can abuse his body for decades by poor diet and lifestyle choices. Suddenly at age 48 or 54, he gets a massive heart attack. His daily condition finally overcame his powerful gifts of a strong constitution.

Thus what we were given from our parents and what we do with it creates our health conditions, our disposition to disease in general and to prostate disease in particular.

In the case of the prostate, men can inherit a weak constitution in that area of the body. This does not mean you are doomed to prostate diseases. It just means that you are more prone than others and will have to make changes if you want prostate health. This is the case of black men and we can reverse it!”

Personal Philosophy in Life

He said, the future you picture is the future you will feature, the ‘YOU’ you see is the ‘YOU’ you will become. Therefore picture a great future to feature and desire a great ‘YOU’ to become and the almighty God will see to it that you have featured in the future you have pictured and have become the YOU” you have desired”.

A vision without provision leads to the revision of the vision but not me he concluded.